


Wanted You to Promise

by AreWeAsBandits



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Ambiguous Relationships, Drunk Sex, F/F, Feelings, Implied/Referenced Abuse, amberprice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2019-11-14 17:55:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18057290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreWeAsBandits/pseuds/AreWeAsBandits
Summary: Chloe and Rachel are kind of in a weird place. When Max comes back to Arcadia Bay, it makes everything weirder.---No powers/dark room/death in this one, but there are lots of feelings. I'm not planning on this becoming Amberpricefield romantically, but their relationships with each other are the crux of this whole thing.Loosely inspired by theHow to Live Hereseries. It's stunning and you should go read it!





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn’t the first time they’ve fucked, not even close, but when Rachel looks at her with those hungry eyes or husks something dripping with innuendo or dances her fingers so lightly across Chloe’s skin she’s sometimes not even sure Rachel’s actually making contact at all, what else can she do but lose control? The electricity from Rachel being so close is enough to short circuit Chloe all over again, every single time.
> 
> \---
> 
> Chloe has a lot of unresolved feelings. This chapter's basically just sad smut. Start with a bang, right?

Somewhere between slamming Rachel against the inside of the bathroom stall door, hearing Rachel slide the lock into place, and crashing their lips together again, Chloe thinks that maybe she could’ve planned this better. It’s a dim sort of thought, diluted in the haze from her blood pumping fast through her veins and how logged that blood is with alcohol by now and her increasing arousal because Rachel’s hands are _everywhere_ , and she thinks that she should really be able to control herself around Rachel by now. This isn’t the first time they’ve fucked, not even close, but when Rachel looks at her with those hungry eyes or husks something dripping with innuendo or dances her fingers so lightly across Chloe’s skin she’s sometimes not even sure Rachel’s actually making contact at all, what else can she do but lose control? The electricity from Rachel being so close is enough to short circuit Chloe all over again, every single time.

Still, Chloe can do better than a bathroom stall at Blackwell in the middle of the night, a Vortex Club party raging on in the pool building next door.

She’s considering pulling back to say as much, trying to work herself up to breaking away from the contact when Rachel runs her hands up under Chloe’s shirt, drags her nails along Chloe’s stomach and up to her ribs, stops just underneath her bra, and then Rachel rakes her nails back down and Chloe thinks maybe this bathroom stall is actually just fucking perfect, fuck. Rachel’s hand slips lower and before Chloe can fully process where it’s going her pants are unbuttoned (How did Rachel unbutton her pants that quickly?) and Rachel’s cupping her hand over Chloe through her underwear, palm pressing against her clit just enough that it makes Chloe grunt into Rachel’s mouth and move her hips into the pressure.

Rachel plants kisses from Chloe’s mouth up to her ear and she stalls there, says, “Shit, Chlo,” so breathlessly it makes Chloe shiver. She should be embarrassed by how easily Rachel ruins her, how wet she knows she already is when they’ve barely even moved on from PG-13 groping. She knows she should be, but she’s too busy pressing against Rachel’s hand, trying to find the right angle and the right pressure, too busy grabbing at Rachel’s shirt collar, tugging it down enough to dip her mouth against the exposed shoulder and bite down on the skin, hard. Rachel hisses and curls her fingers and Chloe’s sure this is how she’ll die one day. She’ll fucking combust from all the want every time she gets Rachel like this. It’s too much. No body could ever hold it all.

Maybe if Chloe had planned this better they’d be able to take their time. Maybe she wouldn’t have wound up with her own back pressed against the stall door less than five minutes in, her pants halfway down her thighs with Rachel pumping two fingers inside her with no pretense at all, and it’s not like Chloe’s complaining, it’s just that when she does get Rachel like this, she likes to take their time. She likes to feel Rachel’s bare skin warm and soft against her own. She likes to explore with her hands and her mouth and she really, really likes when they manage to get Chloe’s house or Rachel’s parents’ vacation rental to themselves and Rachel can be loud because, fuck, Rachel is _loud_  and it turns Chloe on unlike anything else.

Rachel curls her fingers just right at the crux of an upward stroke and Chloe moans louder than she means to, gripping at Rachel’s shoulders and pulling her closer to bury her face in her neck. Fast is good, she decides. Fast is good too.

Everything with Rachel is fast, ultimately. Their entire relationship leading up to this point was so fucking fast Chloe sometimes can’t tack down how exactly they got here. Sometimes, when she thinks back to that first summer they spent together, it feels like they’ve just always been close. Like Rachel’s always understood her in a way no one else ever has—not since Max. But Max left five years ago and Chloe’s finally reached a point where she’s stopped writing her letters, stopped typing out texts and then deleting them before she can convince herself to hit send, stopped waiting for Max to show back up.

She knows she reached this point because of Rachel. She knows that and she’s so grateful for it she doesn’t have the words to express how much. But she also can’t get the image of Rachel at every Vortex Club party they go to out of her mind, Rachel dancing in the middle of a sea of people, most of them assholes who stare at her tits and don’t even try to hide that they are, who grab at her hips and grind way too close to her, and she lets them.

She can’t forget about the first time they kissed and when Chloe had stopped silently freaking the fuck out long enough to ask about it, Rachel had assured her that it was fine, that it didn’t need to be a big deal, that it didn’t need to change anything. She can’t forget about the words that got caught halfway up her throat: _but what if I want it to_?

Rachel leans in and mouths wet half-kisses over Chloe’s neck, the kind that go cold and make her shiver when Rachel blows on them right after. Rachel rubs her thumb against her clit in firm, tight circles in rhythm with the fingers inside her, and it’s not long then until Chloe’s gone. She pants out hot, shallow breaths against Rachel’s neck and lets herself lose it, digs her nails into Rachel’s back to keep her close and bites down on Rachel’s shoulder to keep herself quiet. Rachel locks her free arm around Chloe, keeps her held up against the stall door and slows down a little to help her ride it out, still kissing whatever skin she can reach.

For a minute Chloe can’t process anything but the ringing in her ears and the warmth of Rachel still pressed up against her. She feels drunk, still, but less because of the couple beers she shotgunned with Justin and Trevor an hour ago and more because Rachel’s hands are still on her, running across her stomach and her hips; Rachel’s mouth ghosts over her neck and her ear, her teeth biting at the lobe as gently as anything she does ever is.

“Still alive, Price?” That low whisper mixed with Rachel still touching so many parts of Chloe is entirely too much for how sensitive everything is.

“Fuck,” Chloe says, finally, muffled against Rachel’s shirt. “Fuck.”

“Eloquent, as always.”

Chloe pulls back, meaning to glare at her, meaning to defend herself somehow. She needs to regain some dignity after turning into complete putty like that, but there’s a simpering grin planted on Rachel’s face that only settles when she’s infuriatingly proud of herself, this spark in her eyes that only ignites when she’s one step away from being coaxed into putty herself, and Chloe can’t even pretend to be upset.

“Okay, Casanova,” Chloe says, grinning, planting her lips against Rachel’s and grabbing her close to spin her around so she’s against the door again. “Tell me what you want and we’ll see how fuckin’ eloquent you are.”

Rachel laughs, lilted and happy and drags Chloe’s hands down to her hips. “Chloe Price, you’re hot when you’re confident.”

“I’m always confident.”

“Maybe you’re always hot.” Rachel grins and pulls her back into a kiss, all tongues and teeth dragging along lips.

Chloe leans into it and lets her hands roam again, over her breasts and her stomach and her hips, down her legs to grip the hem of Rachel’s skirt and pull it up to her waist, and it dawns on her that she could slow it down now. She could take her time. She could make it take as long as possible because the longer it takes, the longer she has Rachel to herself. The longer it takes, the longer she feels like whatever she has with Rachel is special to her too, even though deep down Chloe can never stop thinking for long about all the other people Rachel must be fucking, based on the dancing and the flirting and the batting eyelashes.

It’s just that when Rachel hums into her mouth and digs her nails into Chloe’s back and wraps her leg around Chloe’s to tug her closer, to move her hips against the pressure it creates, Chloe loses any resolve she had to drag this out. She’s immediately filled back up with this aching desire to make Rachel feel special and beautiful and _good_ because she is. She is all of those things but those words always get tangled around Chloe’s tongue when she tries to say them out loud, so she tries to show them instead and she hopes it works.

“Fucking touch me already,” Rachel husks against Chloe’s lips. It’s the closest she ever gets to asking.

Chloe never could say no to Rachel, but this isn’t one of those times she wants to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel pinches herself. She has to be dreaming. Max is gone, Max has been gone, and if, by some twist of fate Max came back to Arcadia Bay, Chloe would have fucking mentioned it. Chloe tells her everything. She would’ve mentioned her long lost best friend skipping back into town. If there’s one thing Rachel has never doubted, it’s that Chloe tells her more than she tells anyone else. She would’ve mentioned this.
> 
> Wouldn’t she?
> 
> \--
> 
> Max comes back to Blackwell. Rachel doesn't know how to handle it.

Morning comes too early, but it always does after a Vortex Club party. Rachel silences the alarm on her phone with a grunt, pulls a pillow over her face to block out the entirely-too-bright light spilling in through her dorm window. She’s getting _old_ , she realizes. A couple years ago, she and Chloe would’ve stayed out hours later, she would’ve gotten way more wasted, and still her head wouldn’t have hurt this badly.

The urge to skip class is strong. She’s perfected the art of it by now. First, the email to Wells and her teachers, expressing her sincerest and deepest apologies over the family emergency she just has to attend to, no matter how much she rues putting her education on the backburner. With a father in such a vital, powerful role, it’s really out of her hands, she’d say.

Second, the call to Chloe, always answered with a grunt because Chloe was always still asleep on mornings like this, nursing her own hangover. “Come on, Chlo,” she’d say, already walking fast to her car. “Be my respite. I’ll bring bacon.” And Chloe would grunt again, grumble something about _better be a lot of it_ and hang up the phone, and Rachel would be over there with her hands full of hot Two Whales breakfast within the hour.

The urge is so strong, but she knows she can’t today. Even Rachel Amber can’t justify skipping the first day of class, so she moves her pillow and sits up and immediately regrets it. She leans back against the wall, waits for the wave of nausea to roll away, for the pressure in her head to stop feeling like it’ll split her open. On mornings like these, she finds herself wishing she’d taken a leaf out of Chloe’s book and found a second shift job somewhere instead of staying in school, but as soon as the thought comes she’s pushed it away. There’s no way in hell her father would’ve allowed that, not if she still wanted the car and the allowance and the private dorm room.

The trajectory he has mapped out for her is clear: ace her SAT next week; apply for, receive, and accept admission to An Ivy League School (his preference, of course being Harvard); graduate with honors and a Juris Doctor five years later to start practicing law. It isn’t ideal, but she’s made some degree of peace with it.

The main goal is—has always been—for Rachel and Chloe to get the hell out of Arcadia Bay, and they figured out years ago that if they were going to succeed in getting out, they needed James’ financial support. So, Rachel is planning to ace that SAT and take the first step toward getting them both out of this shithole. She’ll get into a college he approves somewhere that’s Not Oregon and her dad will give her the money to rent an apartment and she and Chloe will finally, finally enact their great escape.

It’s a good plan. And who knows, maybe she’ll be able to add in some modelling and acting on the side too. Maybe once they’ve been wherever they end up for a little while, gotten their footing, she’ll be able to sacrifice her dad’s buy out money and pursue what she actually wants to.

But that’s a year away and it’s so early in the morning and _God_ , her head hurts.

By the time Rachel convinces her legs to propel her up out of bed she’s already late, settling her mind around the knowledge that there won’t be time for the hot, greasy breakfast she really, really wants right now. Not if she wants to shower, and showering isn’t an option, especially not today.

She looks a little bit like a wreck, honestly. Her shoulders are _bruised_ , smattered with bright red hickies in the shape of Chloe’s mouth, some of them tinted purple at the edges. To Chloe’s credit, save for one stray mark a little too far up Rachel’s neck that she’ll have to wear a collared flannel to cover, she always remembers to keep her teeth below the line of most t-shirts.

Rachel gathers up her shower bag and her change of clothes, takes a deep breath, and opens her door to the bustle of Blackwell’s girl’s dorm in the morning.

She manages to make it to the bathroom without having to stop for small talk. Dana and Juliet are too busy with each other to pay her much attention, yelling a conversation about Trevor back and forth across the hallway, each putting on makeup in their respective rooms. Courtney and Taylor, true to form, only smile coldly at her without their Queen Bee to spur them on. Rachel smiles back and offers them a small wave, their smiles falter into blank expressions, and she turns the corner to the bathroom.

It is unfortunate that she comes face to face with Victoria on her way into the bathroom as Victoria’s coming out. Rachel doesn’t have time this morning for a full-blown fight, so she greets her with a smile and relaxes her posture despite everything in her brain telling her not to. “Photography first thing this morning, huh, Vic? I know you must be _so_ excited.”

Victoria crosses her arms and leans back against the door frame. “For someone to finally recognize that you’re not perfect at everything? Yes, very.”

Rachel smiles just a little bit wider, takes a little step closer to Victoria, just enough that she can watch something shift in Victoria’s eyes at the slight invasion of her space. “I don’t think anyone’s ever cared as much about my reputation as you do, Vic. It’s so cute.” She reaches out to touch Victoria’s arm to seal the deal, but Victoria jerks away, glaring, before she can get close. Success.

Victoria stalks off, probably to find Courtney and Taylor and discuss what this week’s graffiti about Rachel will highlight, and Rachel lets herself into the bathroom. There’s a girl she hasn’t seen before brushing her teeth at the sink and she pauses in the doorway for just a moment too long. Blackwell doesn’t get a new girl in the dorms very often. The girl’s eyes flick up at Rachel long enough for her to register that they’re blue and her face is smattered with freckles, and then the girl quickly looks back at her own reflection in the mirror. It jars Rachel back into movement, even as her throbbing head tries to place why this girl looks so familiar.

Maybe Rachel has seen her around campus before. Or at a Vortex Club party? She must have. Those freckles look too familiar.

—

Rachel makes it to Jefferson’s class with five minutes to spare, the last bite of her granola bar between her teeth, and she takes a seat near the front of the class. Within the first ten minutes of Jefferson talking, she’s simultaneously impressed by his skillset and exhausted by how hard he’s trying to make them all impressed by it. She’s way too hungover to be truly endeared by anything at this point.

She has to admit though, the doe-eyed face Victoria makes at him while he talks will quite possibly be the most hilarious thing she sees all day. The only way to make it better would be Chloe here to revel in it with her.

It’s when Jefferson calls attendance that Rachel becomes convinced she’s so hungover she’s actually fallen back asleep in her bed and is imagining all this. It’s when Jefferson calls her name, and then Alyssa’s, and then instead of calling Victoria’s, instead of following the alphabetical order the way it’s been for years, he calls out, “Maxine Caulfield?”

Rachel’s sure she’s dreaming but she turns anyway, lands her eyes on the girl from the bathroom at the very back table, visibly folding in on herself as all the other pairs of eyes in the room land on her too.

“It’s, uh… It’s Max,” the girl says, so quietly Rachel can barely hear her. “Everyone calls me Max.”

“Okay, Max,” Jefferson says, calm and cool as he has been all morning. “Welcome to Blackwell.”

Rachel pinches herself. She has to be dreaming. Max is gone, Max has been gone, and if, by some twist of fate Max came back to Arcadia Bay, Chloe would have fucking mentioned it. Chloe tells her everything. She would’ve mentioned her long lost best friend skipping back into town. If there’s one thing Rachel has never doubted, it’s that Chloe tells her more than she tells anyone else. She would’ve mentioned this.

Wouldn’t she?

—

Rachel’s favorite place to watch the stars is out by the lighthouse. It’s far enough from all the town lights that most of the stars are actually visible, for one, but it’s always been a nice added bonus that Chloe lets her lay back on the bench with her head in her lap. It’s nice that Chloe runs her fingers idly through her hair and lets her steal drags off her cigarettes. It’s nice to see Chloe in this light, or near lack of it. Normally, Chloe is angular, sharp edges, but lit up by moonlight, her face mostly in shadow, she looks softer. Gentle, almost.

“What would you say if I called you gentle?” Rachel asks, reaching up to beat Chloe’s fingers to the cigarette in her mouth and dragging it down to put it between her own lips.

Chloe doesn’t stop her, just scrunches up her nose and purses her lips like she’s trying to breathe out her smoke in rings (she’s been trying to master how all week) but it comes out in a stream instead. “I’d say you’re full of shit and it’s not nice to insult your friends.”

Rachel smiles, takes a drag until the menthol chills her throat and the smoke settles in her lungs, and then she breathes it all back out and slips the cigarette back between Chloe’s lips. Not a bad segue into what she actually wants to pick Chloe’s brain about, even if it did come much faster in the conversation than she anticipated. Still, she’s learned that when it comes to Chloe and talking, she has to pull on whatever thread she gets while it’s there, before Chloe pulls it away.

“Speaking of friends…what would you do if, say, Max came back to town? Like, just showed up?” Rachel makes a show of keeping her face directed up at the sky, playing out a little beat on her stomach with her fingers, but she’s watching Chloe out of the corner of her eye.

She feels Chloe’s hand stop moving, fingers threaded still in her hair. She sees Chloe take the cigarette with her other hand and look down at her, and Rachel makes herself keep looking up, keep drumming out that beat. She’s going for nonchalant here. There’s no sense in showing your whole hand of cards if you don’t have to. Not yet, anyway. She doesn’t know anything yet, except that Max is back somehow, for some reason, and she’s not quite sure yet if she should read Chloe’s reaction as guilt over not telling her about it or genuine confusion about why she was asking.

“What is this, the shitty hypothetical version of Twenty Questions?” Chloe asks.

Rachel sits up and slides closer to Chloe until their hips and thighs touch. She bounces her knee against Chloe’s a couple times. Nonchalant is key. “Would you feel better about playing if you asked me one too?”

“No,” Chloe deadpans. She kills what’s left of the cigarette and drops it to the ground, twists her boot over it to put it out.

And okay, maybe this isn’t going quite as well as she intended. Time for a different approach.

Rachel bumps her shoulder against Chloe’s, then again, and one more time until Chloe cracks the barest hint of a smile and bumps her shoulder back. “C’mon, Chlo. Dance with me.”

“Rach—” Chloe starts, but Rachel’s already up, already dragging Chloe up with her and wrapping her arms around Chloe’s neck, swaying them both in a gentle back and forth as Chloe’s hands settle around her hips. “There’s not even any music, you dweeb,” Chloe says, but she grins one of those grins that tells Rachel she’s happy, even if her words don’t say so.

“It’s okay that you secretly love dancing with me. I won’t tell anyone. Gotta keep up that tough punk image, right?”

“Yeah, that’s what the chicks dig about me. I think it’s the studs. Gets the mind wondering where else I might have ‘em, you know?” Chloe grins and grins and grins.

There’s a momentary discomfort then that throws Rachel for a second, a twisting sort of feeling that she doesn’t like and isn’t sure what to do with, so she compartmentalizes it. She slides thoughts of it away to deal with later or never, preferably never, and she fixes an easy smile back on her face. “Oh? Big lady killer over here, huh? Been keeping some secret kinky rendezvous from me, Price?”

“What’s life without a little mystery?” Chloe shrugs and Rachel feels suddenly annoyed at how coy she’s being, at how she still hasn’t answered her question about Max.

She watches Chloe for a few moments, lets them sway in the quiet underneath the lighthouse while she files away that annoyance too. It’s not a useful emotion, especially not now. Acting on it won’t help anything. Being rash like that never does.

Still, she’s a little too much in her own head so it surprises her when Chloe ducks her head down and leans their foreheads together, closes her eyes so Rachel’s looking at pale eyelids and dark eyelashes when she glances up. It’s one of those so sweet things Rachel’s figured out Chloe just _does_ sometimes, one of those things that always catches her a little bit off guard but that she finds she appreciates more the more Chloe does it. It’s one of those things that cracks the facade, just a little, and Rachel’s learned to let it sometimes. Just a little.

She lets it tonight.

Rachel moves her hand up to cup Chloe’s cheek. Chloe opens her eyes but doesn’t move away so Rachel keeps her hand there, rubs her thumb over her cheekbone. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just…shitty day at work,” Chloe mumbles. “Joyce wouldn’t get off my dick about the fuckin’ dishwasher spewing suds again, like I can pull a working machine outta my ass.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you. You did enchant that old piece of shit truck back to life.”

Chloe pulls back, the offense she takes to what Rachel just said written all over her gaping mouth and knitted brows. “Hey, my truck is a fucking masterpiece, pieced together with the utmost love and care.”

Rachel holds up her hands in surrender. “Please forgive my ignorance. I stand corrected.”

“I expect an apology,” Chloe says, crossing her arms. There’s a grin playing at the corner of her lips.

“I just gave you one. Don’t get greedy.” Rachel punches her lightly on the arm

“No to me, asshole, to the truck.”

Rachel laughs, but she stops when Chloe keeps standing there, arms crossed, looking at her. Rachel crosses her arms back and arches a brow. “You’re not fucking serious?”

“One does not joke about the sanctity of my truck.”

“Look at you, college vocab. Pick that up from one of those girls with a hard on for your studs?” Rachel doesn’t really mean to say it; it just slips out and then it’s gone.

Luckily, Chloe seems to take it stride, grinning more fully now and sauntering the couple steps back over so they’re close again. “Sounds like you’d really like to know.”

It bothers Rachel how much she finds that yes, actually, she does.

So she brings a bit of the facade back because it’s safer that way. She shrugs her shoulders and moves her hands to rest on her hips. “Hm, maybe. I do like to keep an eye on the college market. There’s just something about a girl who wants to experiment, no strings attached…but I guess you know all about that, right?” She smiles, just a little, just enough to keep it lighter than it feels to her as she says it.

Chloe nods slowly, crosses her arms over her chest again. Rachel finds herself wishing she’d never started this conversation at all. Max is back for one fucking day and look what happens. Rachel’s lost control of this and she knows it, and it might already be too late to rein it back, but damn it, she’s nothing if not persistent. It’s one of the few qualities her father instilled in her that she doesn’t think is complete and utter bullshit now.

She reaches out for Chloe again and she’s honestly surprised when Chloe doesn’t move away for how closed off she still looks. Rachel can only assume it’s for her acknowledgment of the casual sex Chloe’s been having with college girls, not that Chloe should really be allowed to be upset when she’s the one who keeps fucking them—but it’s not important. This is what people do when they’re single, and Chloe had agreed with her that no matter what they did or do, they are good as friends, and why fuck up a good thing?

Rachel holds her hands against Chloe’s face and tip-toes up to kiss her cheek, just one light kiss, just a peace offering to settle out whatever this conversation has turned into. “Sorry about your mom today, Chlo. Sucks.”

Chloe shrugs. “Not many places in the bay wanna hire the stoned and formerly expelled, so.”

“Hey,” Rachel says, pulling Chloe’s arms back around her waist, settling her arms back around Chloe’s neck, “you’ll find something fucking awesome.”

Chloe scoffs.

“I mean it,” Rachel insists, fingers tugging on those little hairs at the nape of Chloe’s neck. “You’re a wiz at putting shit back together. What about Pfieffer’s Auto?”

“Tried it, remember? No GED, no go.”

“So get one.”

And then Chloe shakes her head, grinning, like Rachel is the punchline of some joke she’s not privvy to.

“What?” Rachel asks, trying not to let her unease take hold.

“Nothing, it’s just…That’s exactly what Max would say.”

And Rachel feels that off kilter clenching in her stomach again. “What Max would say? She’s been gone like five years, right?” It’s a concentrated effort to keep her voice light, her face impassive.

“Yeah, but we were best friends forever, Rach. I used to think sometimes that she knew me better than I knew myself. I’ve got a pretty good read on what she’d say when by now.”

Her stomach is clenching tighter and tighter and tighter. Does this mean Max hasn’t told Chloe she’s back? That is _not_ what Rachel planned on discovering tonight. “So what would you do then?” she asks. Keep calm. Nonchalant. Her fingers get restless, playing with Chloe’s hair absently just for something to touch, something else to concentrate on feeling.

“What?” Chloe asks.

“What would you do if she just showed back up? You never said before.”

“Oh.” Chloe displaces Rachel’s hands for a moment to scratch at her own neck, and Rachel settles them on Chloe’s shoulders instead. “I dunno. I used to think I’d just be so damn happy to see her again I wouldn’t care, you know? But I think I’d be pissed off she left at first.”

Rachel nods. “At first?”

“Yeah. Like, not forever. Just for a bit.”

“And then…what? You’d be best friends again?”

Chloe’s silent for a minute. Rachel tries very hard not to scream, and even though she can’t quite place where her anger is stemming from, she knows she didn’t have it until Max showed up. It has to come from Max, and she decides right then that she does not like her. The girl left Chloe stranded, fatherless, for five years, left Rachel to pick up the pieces, and now she waltzes back into town and can’t even bother to tell Chloe she’s here? And despite all that, Chloe’s willing to let her waltz back into her life, too? For how long? How long until Max disappears again? No, fuck Max Caulfield.

Rachel’s considering telling Chloe she saw Max today, that she’s back and didn’t even bother to reach out, letting Max finish burning this bridge the rest of the way down all on her own, but then Chloe says, “Honestly, I don’t think I could ever stay mad at her for long. I fucking love that asshole. She’s just…Max. You know?”

And Rachel nods and smiles even as her mouth dries up. What if she tells Chloe that Max is back and instead of being pissed Max didn’t come to her first, they do become best friends again? Rachel tells herself maybe it’s better if Chloe doesn’t know Max is back at all. This way, Max can’t ghost her again. Chloe can’t get hurt again. Chloe deserves better than getting hurt again.

“Why do you wanna know?” Chloe asks after a moment.

Rachel shrugs and presses herself a little closer to Chloe. “Just wondering,” she says, threading her fingers together behind Chloe’s neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who commented on the first chapter! I love comments, so please keep telling me what you think.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even as Rachel forces her lips into a smile and her head into an understanding nod, she’s absolutely, undoubtedly certain that Max is exactly who she thought she was. She is the girl who ghosts her best friend without a second glance. She is the girl who comes back to town and doesn’t bother seeing if her best friend is even still around. She is the girl who cares about herself, about making her own future, with or without Chloe. It takes everything she has not to start yelling, screaming about the girl Max left behind, broken in a million pieces. The girl who deserves, just once, not to get all of life’s shit dumped on her.
> 
> As far as Rachel can tell, Max didn’t deserve Chloe when she had her and she certainly doesn’t deserve Chloe now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW for physical assault which does not happen in scene, but is discussed. See the note at the end of the chapter for a more detailed warning.
> 
> This one's a little heavy on the angst, but it also has some of the sweetest moments (I think) so far, so hopefully it balances out. Sorry this one is a little late; I wound up reworking some of my planning because it just wasn't cooperating or working for me the way I had it. This was supposed to be a Chloe POV chapter, but Rachel loves to steal the show.
> 
> I hope you guys like it!
> 
> P.S. I promise, the next chapter is an actual, non-smut Chloe POV.

Photography class trickles away painfully slowly, Jefferson rambling on about himself and Victoria all but taping a sign to her forehead proclaiming how badly she wants to fuck him, Rachel’s brain running a mile a minute to figure out which angle she wants to approach Max with.

She’d decided after her talk with Chloe last night that she was going to leave it alone. If Max hasn’t mentioned her return to Chloe yet, maybe she never will. Maybe Max will muddle through this next year at Blackwell in the same silence she adopts in class: small and unassuming and so very unlike Chloe in every way that Rachel can’t imagine the two of them together in any stage of life, even one when they were both just kids. She can’t imagine Chloe actually wanting to be friends with someone like Max again, even if she does find out Max is back.

But then Rachel wound up behind Max and Kate Marsh in the cafeteria line this morning and even though she wasn’t trying to hear their conversation, she also wasn’t trying _not_ to hear it.

It started simply enough: Kate talking about her rabbit, Max talking about some plant she’d _named_ (and okay, maybe that was something Chloe would do too). But it didn’t get really, honestly concerning until Kate said, “So, Max…Have you decided what to do about your old friend yet?”

And that familiar knot clenched in Rachel’s stomach again because there was only one person that old friend could be.

“Not yet,” Max sighed. “It’s just been so long and I…She must hate me. She should hate me.”

“You don’t know that. You said you two were very close, right?” Kate said.

Max nodded and took a couple steps forward after Kate as the line moved, Rachel following along within earshot. “We were. Very close.”

“Then you should reach out to her,” Kate said.

“You really think so?”

“Absolutely. If it was me, I’d want to hear from you.”

“You wouldn’t like…be really mad and hate my guts?”

Kate smiled and showed her tray to the cashier, handed over a debit card to pay for her breakfast. “I don’t think anyone could be mad at you for long, Max. I can already tell what a sweet person you are.”

Rachel heard Chloe’s voice from last night loud and clear: _Honestly, I don’t think I could ever stay mad at her for long. I fucking love that asshole. She’s just…Max._

 _Fuck_.

So Rachel sits through Jefferson’s lecture and she stews and she decides she has to talk to Max. She has to figure out if she is planning on worming her way back into Chloe’s life and, if so, why? To leave Chloe wrecked all over again when she packs up and goes—again? She needs to know what Max’s intentions are. Ideally, she needs to convince Max to leave Chloe alone because something about this girl just does not sit right with her. She doesn’t like her. She doesn’t trust her.

She’s got to talk to Max.

When the bell finally rings, Rachel prolongs the time required to pack up her things, angling her head so she can watch Max out of the corner of her eye, keeping time with her. When Max leaves, Rachel follows a couple steps behind and into the hallway, reaching out a hand to touch Max’s elbow as they skirt toward the lockers to avoid the crowd.

Max jumps and Rachel jerks her hand back, not expecting such a quick reaction, but when Max turns and sees her, the girl visibly relaxes. “Oh, sorry,” Max says, and it seems that now that she’s started talking, she can’t stop. “I didn’t mean to…You just kinda scared me. I thought you were someone else. Sorry.”

Rachel’s taken aback for a moment. She can honestly say this is the first time anyone has ever apologized for _her_ startling _them_.

When she’s managed to recover, she puts on a smile and says, “Hey, I should be the one apologizing. I come to welcome you to Blackwell and wind up giving you a heart attack instead.” She allows herself a short, self-deprecating laugh and continues, “I’m Rachel.”

She holds out her hand and Max shakes it. Max introduces herself in return and says, “Thanks for, uh…welcoming me.”

“Oh, don’t mention it. Blackwell’s easy peasy to navigate once you figure it out, but it can be a bitch at first. When’s your next class? I’ll show you around.”

“Oh, um—” Max starts, but Rachel’s wrapping an arm around her shoulders before she’s finished, already leading her off through the halls.

She points out classrooms and people, truthfully still not exactly sure where she’s taking Max or what she plans to say to her. Max’s shoulders are slight and everything about the girl feels _small_ beneath her arm, pressed up into her side. She finds herself struggling, again, to believe that this quiet, small, awkward Max was ever close with her loud, lean, opinionated Chloe.

“Well, I guess that’s the tour!” Rachel says with a flourish of her hand, leading Max out of the building and onto the front lawn.

“It already feels a little less huge,” Max says with a smile.

Rachel lets herself smile back and drops her arm. She sits down on the top step and motions for Max to join her, but the girl just shifts her weight for a moment and then moves to lean against the rail instead, clearly uncomfortable stopping on stairs people are still trying to use.

This girl is so different from Chloe, Rachel isn’t sure they could’ve ever inhabited the same world.

“So, how’s Arcadia Bay treating you?” Rachel glances up to her.

Max shifts again. It looks like she’s trying to dissolve herself into nothing as a group of jocks rushes past them. Finally she says, “It’s…kind of bizarre being back.”

 _There we go_. Something leading in a more interesting direction. “Being back?” Rachel asks, keeping her voice lightly curious.

“Yeah, I grew up here, actually. After we moved, I never thought I’d be back.” Max looks at everything: the building behind them, the trees, the students milling around, the clouds. It’s almost endearing, the way she looks so genuinely amazed to take it all in again, but the bell’s going to ring soon and they’re running out of time if Rachel wants to get anything useful out of Max this morning.

She opens her mouth to press further, but Max speaks before she can.

“It’s exciting to get a chance to start over, you know? A clean slate.”

Even as Rachel forces her lips into a smile and her head into an understanding nod, she’s absolutely, undoubtedly certain that Max is exactly who she thought she was. She is the girl who ghosts her best friend without a second glance. She is the girl who comes back to town and doesn’t bother seeing if her best friend is even still around. She is the girl who cares about herself, about making her own future, with or without Chloe. _A clean slate_. It takes everything she has not to start yelling, screaming about the girl Max left behind, broken in a million pieces. The girl who deserves, just once, not to get all of life’s shit dumped on her.

As far as Rachel can tell, Max didn’t deserve Chloe when she had her and she certainly doesn’t deserve Chloe now.

“It must’ve been nice to get to reinvent yourself,” Rachel says, and despite how hard she tries to keep the anger at bay, she’s sure some of it seeps into her tone when Max looks away from her, down at her sneakered feet. “And now you get to reinvent yourself again.”

Max nods and looks back at her. “Yeah, it was nice. It is nice. I’m excited to see where Blackwell takes me.”

The five-minute warning bell rings then and Rachel stands, dusting off the seat of her pants. “Well, I’m glad we got to chat today, Max.”

“Yeah, me too,” Max says, and Rachel thinks it sounds like she actually means it.

She’s not sure that she can say the same for herself.

***

Chloe texts her at 10:30, just as she’s about to get into bed and call it a night. That by itself isn’t unusual, but when all the text says is _meet me in the parking lot in ten_ , Rachel’s curiosity peaks.

She types back: **Give me twenty. Drive slow.** and starts re-dressing herself, running over the possibilities of what’s going on in her head as she does. If there was a party, she’d know about it. Besides, it’s a Tuesday, so the odds of there being a party are slim anyway. Her parents’ cabin is up for grabs through the weekend, but they always plan their nights there out in advance and she’s certain they decided on Thursday, not tonight, to better accomodate Chloe’s work schedule. Sometimes Chloe just wants to cruise the town and crash in the junkyard with some weed and punk music blaring under the stars, but she’s never this vague when that’s what she wants.

It’s closer to twenty-five minutes before Rachel’s sneaking out of the dorms and across the dark, empty campus, still with no idea what’s compelled Chloe to drive all the way out here in the middle of the night.

She heads toward the truck parked alone in the lot, smiling when she sees a trail of smoke rising up from the driver’s side window. Maybe this is about smoking after all. She marches up to the passenger side and yanks the door open with a creak, starts to say, “Gee, thanks for waiting on me to—” but she stops before she can fully tease Chloe about the already half-smoked joint between her lips.

Chloe’s sideways in the seat with her back against the door and her right leg tucked underneath her body, a deep purple bruise surrounding her swollen eye. Rachel’s breath hitches and she can’t do anything but stare for a second, and then she’s doing everything at once.

“Holy shit, Chlo,” she breathes, climbing into the truck and scooting to Chloe in one smooth movement, her hands already gentle on Chloe’s face. Chloe sighs and closes her eyes for a moment and Rachel knows without asking that this is David’s doing. She always thinks he can’t possibly do anything to make her hate his guts more than she already does, but then he does something like this. He manages it, every time. “That motherfucker,” she says, more to herself than to Chloe.

“’S fine,” Chloe mumbles, holding out the joint to her.

Rachel takes it and sticks it in the ash tray. Chloe parts her lips like she’s considering a protest, but Rachel trails a thumb over her non-bruised cheek and Chloe snaps her mouth closed. Rachel turns on the cab light and tilts her face up toward it, tries her best to get a gauge on if there’s any potential damage in her eye, but Chloe hisses at the touch and pulls away, so Rachel lets her go and turns the light back off.

“You’ve gotta start adding this shit into your texts,” Rachel says. “I would’ve expedited getting dressed. What happened?”

Chloe shrugs as Rachel starts combing the rest of her, picking up her arms and inspecting the skin, peeling the collar of her shirt to the side to check her chest for marks or bruises.

“If you want a free show, you can just ask. I’m not shy,” Chloe says, smiling just enough it makes Rachel forget just a little bit about David, just for a second.

She rolls her eyes and leans her shoulder against the seat, trying her best to return Chloe’s smile, but when she looks at Chloe’s black eye again the anger comes back and she knows the smile doesn’t land the way it should on her lips, at the corners of her eyes. She’s _pissed_ , goddamn it, and she’s tired of feeling helpless to do anything more than try to patch Chloe up in the aftermath, knowing that in the end she’s going to have to send her right back into that house with that asshole and it’ll all happen again in a couple weeks. In a month, if they’re lucky and he waits that long.

“I’m fine,” Chloe repeats with a little more firmness, like she can read everything going on inside Rachel’s head just by looking at her. Sometimes Rachel thinks she actually can. She’s the only one who can. “He just punched me.”

“You say that like it’s fine, some normal thing.”

“I mean, it kinda is a normal thing for me,” Chloe says, shrugging again. “I fuck up a lot.”

“Chlo…” Rachel starts, but she can’t finish it. She doesn’t know what to say. She never knows what to say or do except sit like an asshole and pretend that she’s actually helping when she knows she’s not fixing anything at all. Helping would be getting Chloe out of that house. Helping will be relocating them both to a college town far, far away. But her SAT isn’t for another few days and moving will be even longer and she’s never felt so utterly fucking useless than she feels every time David hits Chloe.

Chloe plucks the joint back out of the ash tray and busies herself trying to get it lit again. “I went home, so that’s the first thing I fucked up today.” The lighter clicks up a flame. She holds the joint between her lips and lets the fire lick at the end. “The second thing,” she mumbles around the end in her mouth, “was I waited too long to surrender and retreat.” The flame catches and she sucks in a breath, holds it. She blows it all out when she says, “The third thing was I told him to let go of me when he grabbed me. Oh, and I called him an asshole, so I guess that’s four.”

Rachel closes the remaining distance between them and pulls Chloe into a tight hug without thinking about it. It’s a little awkward with their positioning in the seat, legs tucked up at weird angles between them, but she feels Chloe wrap her arms around her and relax against her, smells the faint remnants of cigarette smoke and something herbal and earthy and so _Chloe_ that all she can do is hold her and breathe and lie to herself that it’ll be okay when it’s so obviously not. When it hasn’t been okay in a long time.

“Fuck him,” Rachel says softly, her cheek pressed against Chloe’s shoulder, Chloe’s forehead tucked against her neck. “There’s no fucking excuse for him to hit you, Chlo.”

Chloe doesn’t say anything, but she does squeeze Rachel a little tighter.

And Rachel decides she’s done being idle. She’s done being reactive instead of proactive. She can fix this, at least for the week, and she can worry about the rest later. One day at a time.

She leans away from Chloe and slips out of the truck. “Hey,” Chloe says as she walks around the front of the truck to the driver’s side and pulls the door open. “What are you—”

“Scoot,” Rachel says, pushing Chloe’s thigh with her hand.

“What the fuck?” Chloe asks, but she’s already obeying, sliding into the middle of the seat so Rachel can climb behind the wheel.

“You’re not going home tonight. Or this week.” Rachel turns the key in the ignition and the truck grumbles to life.

Chloe smiles. “So you’re kidnapping me?” She smokes what’s left of the joint—which isn’t much now, after the extended hug—and drops the remnants of it outside the window.

“It’s only kidnapping if you’re not a willing participant.”

“Who says I’m a willing participant?”

“Aren’t you?” Rachel flashes her a wide grin and backs them out of the parking space.

“Depends,” Chloe says. “Where are we going?”

The truck lurches when Rachel shifts from reverse into first gear and she winces, afraid it’s going to stall, but the transmission picks back up and they’re rolling smoothly before long, out of the parking lot and away from Blackwell.

“How’s the cabin suit you?” Rachel asks.

She glances over in time to see Chloe grin and nod. “Hell yeah.”

Rachel says, “Told ya you’re a willing participant,” and she drives them out of town.

***

“I’d forgotten about the new nautical theme,” Chloe says when Rachel leads the way into the master bedroom, flipping on the light as she passes the switch.

Over the summer, her mom had decided to do some redecorating, make it feel _more like home_ , which wound up resembling the set of a Moby Dick play more than it reminded Rachel of anything about California. Her mom hung an old ship wheel on the far wall between the windows and a pair of wooden oars above the bed; she placed whale statues and vases full of shells and white sand on the end tables and dresser, respectively.

“You can almost smell the Cali air, right?” Rachel says with an eye roll, walking into the master bathroom with Chloe at her heels.

Chloe scoffs and leans against the door arch. “Is that what the smell is? I was going with Eau de…Rich Parents.”

Rachel laughs and tugs Chloe further into the room, pushes her up onto the countertop to check her eye in lighting much better than the old truck offered. “Sick burn, dude. How _do_ you do it?”

“I’m trying to dumb it down. I hear you Cali types are fuckin’ airheads.”

Rachel hums, smiling, and says, “So nice of you to help me keep up with your charming wit.”

“You know me,” Chloe says. “Always been a giver.”

“Well, be a gem and give me your eye open, would you?”

Chloe does open her eye some, and it’s not entirely helpful but Rachel’s not convinced that she _can_ open it any further, so she works with what she has. There are definitely some blown vessels, but nothing appears badly damaged. It’s not the worst David Injury Rachel’s tended over the past three years, but she’s not sure that the realization makes her feel any better.

“Rach…” Chloe says after a few moments, breaking the silence. “I’m fine. You don’t have to do all this.”

“How many times are you going to tell me I don’t have to do this before you figure out I’m going to do this?” Rachel asks softly.

Chloe looks away, and something about the dark purple bruise against her pale skin, the slump of her shoulders, the limp hang of her long limbs makes Rachel want to pull her into another hug and never let her go. Something about how fragile she looks in this moment makes Rachel think about the Chloe she met three years ago, angry and broken and alone. It makes her think about the Chloe she imagines existed before she met her, before Joyce pulled David into their lives, before Max left. It makes Rachel think about the relationship Max and Chloe had and she doesn’t want to think about it but once those thoughts start, she can’t get them to stop.

Would Max handle this better than she is?

Would Max be able to connect with Chloe in a way she can’t?

Would Chloe prefer Max right now?

Rachel’s throat tightens and she steps away to busy herself in the bathroom storage cabinet. She finds a hand towel and pushes it into Chloe’s hands, says, “Hold this. I’m going to get something to ice your eye.”

She moves to leave but Chloe’s hand on her wrist stops her. Chloe holds on until she turns fully to face her again.

“Your eye’s already swelling,” Rachel says. “If you have plans to see out of it at all tomorrow, we should—”

“I don’t wanna spend tonight with a goddamn bag of frozen peas on my face, Rach.” Chloe’s voice is soft but firm. When she lets go of Rachel’s wrist, Rachel stays put. “I’d rather just…forget about it. Honestly.”

Rachel watches her for a second, trying to decide if this is one of those times she should push Chloe to do what’s best for her even though Chloe doesn’t want to do it or one of those times she should cave and let Chloe be comfortable. She’s still deliberating when Chloe slides off the counter, cups Rachel’s face in her hands, and kisses her.

She stops deliberating when Chloe’s tongue parts her lips and meets hers.

She thinks—fleetingly—that this _has_ to be one thing, at least, that she shares with Chloe that Max never did, and that thought makes her grip Chloe’s hips tight.

She stops thinking at all when she pulls Chloe back into the bedroom and onto the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding the TW/CW: David punches Chloe in an off-the-page scene. Chloe gets a black eye, which Rachel fusses over, and they discuss the fact that David hits Chloe semi-regularly.
> 
> Again, thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to leave kudos or comments! They make my day, always.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the entire last hour of her shift, she battled lingering thoughts of what her life used to look like: before her dad died; before Max left; the first couple months after she met Rachel, before things got complicated. She remembers feeling happiness in those moments, blips of freedom, most of them tied to buried time capsules or playsets-turned-pirate-ships or dancing with the most talented-smart-witty-beautiful girl she’s ever met in a mosh pit full of electricity from the brush of their bodies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential TW/CW again for a character saying some pretty apologist things re: the physical assault from the last chapter and more (non-explicit) mentions of that assault. If you want to skip it, just scroll to the first line break and you're in the clear.
> 
> Well, this one turned into something much more massive than I planned. It's over 7,000 words of Chloe's complicated life--enough to nearly double the word count of the whole work. Oops.
> 
> Anyway, things are starting to heat up. I hope you guys like it!

This week is by far the best one Chloe’s had in a long time. She feels _free_ and _happy_ and like maybe, just maybe, everything’ll turn out okay after all. It’s amazing, she thinks during the last hour of her shift at Two Whales, how much easier something as mundane as mopping the floor feels knowing she gets to bail for the Ambers’ cabin afterward. Knowing she gets to spend her evening just existing, with Rachel, not having to dodge David’s latest tirade or Joyce’s latest effort to pry into her life.

Joyce has been the hardest part of this week. Dodging texts about when she’s coming home is one thing, but dodging her mother-turned-boss at work is another, impossible even for someone with an adolescence built around avoiding the influences and attentions of the adults around her.

Chloe feels bad avoiding her, honestly, and she hates herself for it. But Joyce has spent the past four days trying to ask her what happened and looking at her with absolute sorrow written all over her face, like Chloe not coming home is actually breaking her heart, and as much as she thinks Joyce should’ve thought about that before she married Step Douche, she can’t look at her mom sad like this. She can’t fucking do it, and she can’t avoid her because she’s supposed to be working, and she doesn’t have any more paid time off to _not_ be working for a while.

So today, when Joyce clocks out and catches her mopping and asks her again, “What happened, Chloe?” in her softest, most heartfelt tone, Chloe caves.

She sighs and props the mop up against the wall, straightens her beanie and leans against the counter with her arms crossed over her chest. “What do you think happened?”

The black eye is still noticeable, even with some of Rachel’s makeup smeared over it. It should be obvious. It isn’t the first time she’s had one courtesy of David’s fist.

Joyce reaches behind herself to untie her apron and lifts it over her head. She folds it loosely and grips it in her hands when she looks at Chloe again. “David feels just awful about it, and—”

Chloe hisses out a bitter laugh and cuts her off. “Oh, David feels awful, huh? Well, shit, that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

“He doesn’t know how to reach you, Chloe. He’s trying his best.”

She knew this was a mistake. It’s always a mistake, and she always caves anyway, and she always feels like shit like this immediately after. “Are you serious? You’re _defending_ him?”

“No, I’m not defending him,” Joyce says, but it feels very, very much like she is. “I’m just saying that you two having a good relationship is a two-way street. David _wants_ to be a good father to you, Chloe, but—”

“I _had_ a good father!” she says, louder than she means to, loud enough a family in the far corner booth glances up at them.

Joyce flashes them an apologetic smile and they tuck their heads back to their plates. “Keep your voice down,” she hisses at Chloe.

But Chloe’s done. She stands up straight and takes off her own apron, slams it onto the counter and brushes past Joyce. “Fuck this, I’m out.”

“Chloe!” Joyce calls, rushing after her into the storeroom. She catches Chloe’s wrist a few steps from the back door, holds her steady, and Chloe is seething, so mad she wants to scream and fight and run all at once. It all falls away when she looks back at Joyce to tug her arm free and finds her mother crying.

It’s a soft, quiet cry. The kind of cry Chloe hasn’t seen since the days following her dad’s funeral, when neither of them really had anything left to feel but the tears still came anyway. It broke her then and it breaks her now and _goddamn it_ , she hates herself for always letting it.

She wants to wrench her arm back and storm off, but she can’t. She can’t look away and she can’t move and she can’t stay pissed when Joyce is like this.

“We just want you home, Chloe,” Joyce says softly. “ _I_ just want you home.”

The knowledge that on Sunday Rachel’s parents will be back in town and the cabin won’t be an optional hideout anymore had been on her radar since she and Rachel started staying there, but it’s been something she didn’t have to worry about just yet, so she hadn’t. But Sunday is rapidly approaching and that growing apprehension mixes with the way Joyce is holding Chloe so tightly it’s like she fears Chloe will slip away forever if she lets go, and it makes Chloe almost, _almost_ tell Joyce what she wants to hear.

She knows she could tell Joyce she’ll be home, if nothing else just to make her feel better. She knows she could forgive David. Forgive Joyce for bringing him into their lives and siding with him over and over again, despite her denial of doing it.

But Joyce’s fingers tighten and pull at the skin of her wrist not unlike the way David’s did earlier this week before she’d yanked her arm out of his grip, before he’d punched her, and she can’t. She can’t be controlled this way and she can’t live in fear like this. She’s _tired_.

“I can’t,” she says with all the firmness she can muster into her voice, pulling her arm away and taking two steps back from her mom, her back colliding with the door. “Not if he’s there. I fucking can’t. I’m done.”

Joyce shakes her head, takes an uneasy step forward as Chloe fumbles behind her back for the doorknob. “Chloe, please. Where will you go?”

“I’ll figure it out,” she says, opening the door and stepping out into the warm, bright afternoon sunlight. Her shift’s not over but she’s so far beyond the capacity for giving a shit, she doesn’t think about it for more than a second as she walks across the parking lot to her truck.

Joyce’s footsteps catch up with her but she doesn’t turn around. She sidesteps when Joyce tries to grab at her wrist again, and finally, frustrated, Joyce raises her voice when she says, “You still have an hour of your shift left, where are you going?”

Chloe doesn’t respond, just grips the truck’s door handle and wrenches the door open.

“Chloe!”

“I don’t know, fuck!” she yells, turning back to Joyce.

“Your shift’s not over yet,” Joyce repeats, like maybe, somehow, Chloe missed it the first time. There’s something set, dangerous in her eyes.

That something makes Chloe square her shoulders. “What, are you gonna fire me?”

“I can’t keep covering for you, Chloe.”

“You’re the boss,” Chloe says, frustrated.

“Yes, so you can see how important it is that people don’t think I’m playing favorites with my daughter. You’re out of time off and people have already been talking.”

“About what?”

“About how you’re late more often than you’re on time, for one,” Joyce says, her voice rising again.

Chloe looks away from her. She won’t admit it, but that’s fair. It’s true.

“Two, how you showed up _clearly_ high last week.”

And okay. That’s true too.

“Three—”

“Okay, I get it!”

Joyce goes silent, finally, and Chloe stares down at her own shoes, at the black asphalt beneath her feet. It’s no secret that she’s not a model employee, but she didn’t realize—truly had never considered—that her fuck ups at the Two Whales would come back on Joyce. Usually her fuck ups only affect her, so they don’t feel important in the long run. Just little speed bumps that make her already rocky life a little more unpredictable, but ultimately she’s dealt with worse and come out alive, so fuck it, right?

“I promised myself I wouldn’t do this,” Joyce mutters, and when Chloe looks up, her mom is looking down at the apron still in her hands, wringing it between them. When Joyce looks up, Chloe forces herself to hold the eye contact despite how desperately she wants to look away. Is this the part where she gets fired by her own mother? From the only job she’s ever had and, realistically, the only job she’ll ever be able to get?

Joyce sighs, then says, “If you promise me you’ll come home tonight, eat a civilized dinner with me and David so the three of us can talk about all this…I’ll cover for you.”

Chloe blinks. “What?”

“But this is the _last time_ , you hear me? I will not do this again.”

“Mom…”

Joyce takes a few steps forward and Chloe thinks for a minute she’s going to touch her, the way one hand hovers in the air between them for a moment, but Joyce puts her hand back on the apron. She unfolds the apron and slides it back over her head. “Promise me. A _civilized_ dinner, Chloe. That means no jumping down David’s throat as soon as he speaks. He wants to apologize and I want you to hear him out.”

And Chloe wants to. She wants to say yes, to promise her mother the only thing she wants to hear and for that look of pure disappointment to stop settling on Joyce’s face every time she looks at her lately. She wants things to be peaceful at home. She wants things to be like they were. She wants her fucking dad back. She wants David gone. But she knows her mom well enough to know she’ll never kick that deadbeat out. She knows David well enough to know he’ll never leave of his own accord. And she knows herself well enough to know that a promise to be civilized to David any day of the week is a promise she’s destined to break, but especially one made a mere eighty-something hours after he _punched her_ in the face. Especially when that black eye hasn’t even healed up all the way yet.

She shakes her head slowly. “I’ve heard enough of his apologies. I don’t need another one. They’re nothing but words anyway.” She closes the truck door and moves past Joyce, fully expecting some degree of effort to stop her from going back inside, but nothing ever comes.

Joyce just stands there, seemingly stuck to the blacktop, watching Chloe wordlessly as she stalks back up the steps, wrenches the back door open, and heads back into the diner to finish her shift.

—

It’s been a while since Chloe’s skated and she is, admittedly, rusty. She’ll never say as much out loud, but the scrapes on the palms of her hands and the thin, dirty spots on the knees of her pants, worn almost down to actual holes, speak for themselves to the number of spills she’s taken on the half pipe in the first hour she’s been at the skatepark.

In hindsight, maybe changing out of her work clothes would’ve helped, but a pair of sneakers and different pants hardly seemed worth a trip home to risk running into David or her mother or both. So, she eats shit a few times in her boots and work khakis until muscle memory starts coming back and she finds herself smiling, entranced by the rhythmic crash of her board’s wheels against the wood every time she comes back down. It’s the air whipping at her tank top so it billows out at her sides, grabbing her hair and running through it. It’s the seconds of pure, blissful weightlessness every time she pops up off the lip and rotates her body to anticipate the fall back down. It’s consuming, like nothing else exists but Chloe and the board underneath her feet.

Skating lets Chloe shut off her brain, and there’s a lot going on inside it today she’s more than happy to tune out. For the entire last hour of her shift, she battled lingering thoughts of what her life used to look like: before her dad died; before Max left; the first couple months after she met Rachel, before things got complicated. She remembers feeling happiness in those moments, blips of freedom, most of them tied to buried time capsules or playsets-turned-pirate-ships or dancing with the most talented-smart-witty-beautiful girl she’s ever met in a mosh pit full of electricity from the brush of their bodies.

But the last remnants of sunlight are warm on her skin and her board’s wheels rattle out a constant hum against the wood and none of those old memories matter. They’re gone anyway. Thinking about the past never fixes anything; thinking about times she was happy never brings them back.

A familiar voice calling out, “Ho-ly shit! Chloe fuckin’ Price? No way!” pulls her back into to the present.

She tops out and grabs her board, turns toward the voice and finds Justin climbing to the top of the half pipe to meet her, Trevor right behind him.

“Hey, dude,” she says, grinning because you just can’t _not_ grin at Justin when he’s stupid excited and definitely stoned, returning the hug-and-back-pat combo he gives her.

Trevor punches her lightly on the shoulder. Chloe punches him back just as lightly and laughs when he completely dissolves into a fit of giggles.

“Shit, are you assholes gonna share the stash, or what?” she asks.

“Hell yeah, dude,” Justin says, fishing a joint out of his pocket and handing it over with a Bic. “Where the hell have you been?” he asks as Chloe lights up. “Haven’t seen you around here in a fuckin’ minute.”

“Didn’t think you still skated,” Trevor says, leaning back against the railing.

Chloe takes the first hot drag off the joint and passes it and the lighter back to Justin, holding the smoke in her lungs. She shrugs as Justin pockets the lighter and puts the joint between his own lips, then passes it off to Trevor.

“Work’s a blackhole,” she says, exhaling the smoke so it rises up like a cloud around them before dissipating into the air.

“Not turnin’ into a workin’ stiff on us, are you, Price?” Justin asks, grinning.

“Fuck off,” Chloe says, shoving his shoulder and forcing a smile, but the insinuation digs deeper than she gives it permission to, despite the fact that she knows he’s joking.

What’s happened to her life that she wound up working at the number one place her younger self swore she’d never be a slave to? That she’s gone so long without skating that she actually _forgot_ how to enter a half pipe and stay on her feet? Fuck, that it’s been at least eight months since the last underground punk show she went to, the last mosh pit she danced in, the last time she partied at all that wasn’t on Blackwell ground surrounded by popular, hipster assholes?

She had an out at work today, a simple way to skip her last hour. She could’ve just told Joyce she’d be at dinner and broken her promise later, met David’s empty words of apology with her own empty words of willingness to hear it, and called it even.

But she didn’t. _She went back inside_.

_Is_ she becoming a working stiff?

_Holy fuck_ , she thinks. She _is_.

“Yo, did you blast off?” Justin snaps his fingers in front of her face, waves the joint in his other hand back and forth until she tracks it with her eyes. He holds it out to her then, steady.

She takes it, sucks in another hit. “What’s up this weekend?” she asks as Trevor plucks the joint from her fingers. “I wanna party for real, not that Vortex Club bullshit.”

Trevor grins around the joint, looks at Justin as he sing-songs, “Chloe’s ba-ack.”

“Well, you’re in luck, hombre,” Justin says, smiling wide. “There’s a house party tonight at Fourth and Elm. Some all-chick punk band from Portland. I hear they have a huge following in the _community_ ,” he adds with a wink, and it’s impossible to miss the meaning behind his words.

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Good lookin’ out, dude, but I’m inviting Rachel.”

Trevor giggles again and says, to no one in particular, “She was, like, _snuggling_ the new girl in the hall the other day, arm all around her and shit. Fuckin’ cute, man.”

Chloe grunts out a strangled, “What?” as Justin collides his foot with Trevor’s shin.

“Ow, what the fuck?” Trevor yelps, glaring at Justin.

“Dude!” is all Justin says back, gesturing to Chloe.

In the commotion, Chloe tries to compose herself because this is stupid. For the entirety of their friendship, she and Rachel have both been free to pursue whomever they want. This isn’t a new thing. Chloe has fucked other girls and while Rachel hasn’t given her a detailed checklist, Chloe is all but certain she’s fucked a myriad of dudes.

But that’s the thing: Rachel fucks Chloe and _dudes_. And maybe it makes her a hypocrite with all the other girls who’ve come into her life for a night, maybe two, but she is not prepared for the realization that Rachel, presumably, fucks other women too. She is not prepared for that realization to hurt her in a way that she does not like and does not want to acknowledge because it’s too complicated, too problematic. Her fucking feelings have the great potential to ruin everything.

_Snuggling_? A girl?

That’s worse than bathroom stall fucking a dude. It feels so much worse.

She swallows back a wave of nausea and steals the joint from Trevor, sliding it between her lips and taking two long drags, back to back. 

“Sorry, Chlo,” Trevor mumbles.

“It’s fine,” Chloe lies. “It’s not like we’re dating.” She tries to keep her voice light and has no idea if it lands or misses, but she’s leaning toward misses based on the way Trevor still isn’t looking at her and the way Justin _is_ , like he absolutely does not believe her. Like he wants to press it. She wills him not to with her eyes and, for good measure, pushes the joint at him to give him something else to do besides stare at her like he’s trying to read her mind.

He takes it and he smokes and he doesn’t press her for more. She’s thankful.

They ease back into light, unimportant conversation for a while after that, catching up on video games and movies and skate tricks and how Justin and Trevor both want to date Dana Ward. Chloe makes a half-assed, deadpan quip, says, “I don’t think she’s poly but hey, gotta swing to hit, right?” and they both groan and launch into simultaneous ramblings about why each of them is _obviously_ best suited to date Dana over the other and Chloe tunes them both out.

Rachel and some fucking new girl. The image sticks in her mind like a brand, red hot and searing. She can’t brush it off. How cozy is hallway snuggling? What else have they done? Where? The dorms are an obvious option, but…The cabin?

Shit, the cabin.

_Their_ cabin.

Before she’s made up her mind to do it, her mouth is saying, “Hey, I gotta bail but I’ll catch you at the party tonight,” and her body is taking her down off the half pipe.

“See ya there, Price!” Justin calls.

She’s on autopilot as she walks quickly through the parking lot to her truck. Her board winds up somewhere on the floorboard and she drives away from town, not sure what she hopes to find at her destination. No girl just means she’ll keep filling in the blanks in her head. A girl there with Rachel means…

_It means Rachel is fucking other people, just like we decided we both would_ , Chloe tells herself. _Just like she’s been doing for years_.

_It’s fine_.

It’s fine.

—

Rachel’s car is in the driveway and when Chloe pulls in and parks beside it, she realizes she can’t move. Her hands are glued to the steering wheel, her feet are glued to the pedals, and her back is glued to the seat.

This is stupid. She’s being insane. This is verging on some weird stalker bullshit, showing up unannounced to a house that doesn’t belong to her just to see if her best friend is fucking someone or not. It’s stupid and she suddenly feels stupid for letting herself do this. She should’ve just stayed at the skatepark. At minimum, she should have texted first. She should’ve called. Something. Anything other than showing up here like a codependent, jealous creep, because that’s what she feels like now that she’s here, staring at the front door, wondering what’s happening on the other side of it.

She gets as far as gripping the hand brake to release it and at least drive out of view to text Rachel about the party when a pizza delivery driver pulls into the driveway so quickly she braces for the car to hit her truck, but it doesn’t. The tires squeal and the car lurches to a stop inches from her back bumper, and she watches, still immobile as the driver pops out, warming bag in tow. He half-runs up to the front door to ring the bell as Chloe’s stomach knots itself up and her throat seizes in a concentrated effort to strangle her.

_They ordered pizza together_.

Rachel opens the door with a dazzling grin and at least she’s fully clothed, so that’s something. She and the driver chit chat for a few seconds before exchanging the pizza boxes and money. Chloe watches the driver walk briskly back to the car and peel away before Rachel’s even back inside the house, and she’s set to follow that delivery driver the hell away from here as soon as the driveway’s clear, but Rachel spots her before she can. Rachel’s grin falters and she cocks her head and _oh, fuck_.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Rachel tucks the pizza boxes between the crook of her hip and her elbow and walks to Chloe’s truck and Chloe’s still frozen, rooted in place. This is it. She knows it. It’s done. Whatever they have, it’s done. She crossed a line coming here like this, intruding in Rachel’s personal life and _fuck_.

Rachel pulls the door open and says, “What’re you doing, weirdo?”

Chloe wants to die.

But then Rachel reaches over her to twist the key in the ignition and turn off the truck, grabbing Chloe’s wrist on her way back out and tugging Chloe out onto her feet. “C’mon, I ordered us pizza. You’re late as shit so I was going to just save you some, but you’re here now, so get it while it’s hot.” Rachel grins wide and holds the pizza boxes up enticingly, inching backwards away from Chloe and motioning for her to follow.

“I—” Chloe starts, but her tongue isn’t working and her mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, not because of the weed, and her brain isn’t forming words right now.

“What?” Rachel asks, stopping halfway up the path and arching an eyebrow. “Did something happen? Did David—”

“No,” Chloe says with a wave of her hand, finally able to speak, to move. “I’ve just, uh…I’m kinda in my own head today, that’s all. It’s fine.”

“Don’t stay in that pretty head too long,” Rachel says. Then, with a smile, “I got double pepperoni. I can smell the grease from here.” Another enticing wave of the boxes.

Chloe relents. Maybe her brain will fill in the blanks on its own later and she’ll have to figure out how to handle it then, but for now it’s just her and Rachel and the pizzas she ordered for herself and Chloe, not herself and someone—anyone—else, and that’s enough. That has to be enough. She follows Rachel inside.

They sit on the couch side by side, each with a pizza box perched on their lap, and they eat and they watch this horrible nature documentary that’s little more than a compilation of fluffy things dying. It’s actually really adorable the way Rachel leans in a little closer to Chloe when the dramatic music swells in for the chase scenes, the way she gasps every time the predator lunges and misses.

On a normal day, Chloe would tease her about being so soft-hearted, especially about a thing _she_ picked out to watch. Maybe, if she was feeling confident or reckless or some combination of the two, she’d use Rachel’s softness to land a move, but her brain’s still lagging and she doesn’t quite trust herself to talk yet, much less _do something_ without making a fool of herself. Instead, she sits and she eats her pizza and she smiles every time Rachel’s shoulder or thigh brushes against her but she doesn’t say anything. She tries to let the images of Rachel and New Girl filter away. It’s hard, but they do filter away eventually, slowly.

“So, did Joyce keep you late again?” Rachel asks after a while, eyes on the television, a slice of pizza in her hand.

“Hmm?” Chloe asks around her own mouthful.

“You were supposed to get off work like two hours ago. Did you get lost in the expanse of Arcadia Bay?”

Chloe swallows and says, “Oh. No, I went to skate.” She stuffs so much crust into her mouth she can barely chew it.

“If you choke, I’m not reviving you,” Rachel says with an eyeroll, the corners of her mouth twitching to avoid a smirk. Then, “Skating, huh? I didn’t know you still did.”

“Yeah,” Chloe says, but it’s muffled. She swallows. “Hey, speaking of, I caught up with Justin and Trev and there’s a party tonight. Sounds pretty cool.”

“Oh?” Rachel finishes her slice and closes up the box on her lap. She sits it on the coffee table and turns to face Chloe, elbow propped up on the back of the couch, head on her hand, mischief written in bold all over her face.

“What?” Chloe says slowly, a grin playing at her own lips, sitting her box on the table too and mirroring Rachel’s position on the couch. “I don’t trust that face, Amber.”

“It’s been a while, Price.”

“Since…?”

“Since we livened up the Arcadia Bay punk scene. I assume that’s the kind of party we’re dealing with?”

Chloe smiles and nods. “Astute reasoning. So, wanna go?”

“I never turn down a good party,” Rachel says, and with a slap of her hand on Chloe’s knee she’s up, Chloe close at her heels to get ready.

—

The house is already full when Chloe and Rachel get there, packed with dancing, sweat-soaked bodies pulsing in time with the heavy bass and the roaring guitars and the fast, rhythmic drums. They squeeze between all the people and into the kitchen, where they find Justin perched on the countertop, a beer in his hand and a joint between his lips, Trevor leaning beside him with a Solo cup clutched in one hand, both of them clearly trying to chat up Dana.

Dana notices Chloe and Rachel first, her face lighting up into a wide grin. “Rach, Chloe!” she calls over the music, crossing the kitchen in three quick strides to pull Rachel into a hug and pat Chloe’s shoulder.

“Price, you made it!” Justin says. He raises his beer in their direction. “‘Sup, Rachel?” he adds, and Rachel gives him an easy smile.

“Yo, where’s the booze?” Chloe asks the room at large.

Dana opens the fridge and stands to the side, drawing her arm in front of it like she’s Vanna White. “Pick your poison,” she says. “Shit, shitty, or shittier?”

And Chloe laughs at that because, yeah, it is all really bad, really cheap beer and she knows she should hate herself every time she drinks it, but she never does. If she’s being honest, she _likes_ it. Sometimes, she prefers it to the good stuff, if nothing else for the nostalgia it brings.

PBR is her first punk house show when she was fifteen and learned how a little bit of a buzz made it feel like the music was _inside_ her bones. Rolling Rock is post-game in the ice rink changing room, waiting for that hockey player chick she hooked up with a couple times to be ready to go home, and that means Rolling Rock is also the start of figuring out she actually likes girls. Budweiser is watching Firewalk at the old mill, the night she met Rachel, and Milwaukee’s Best is the taste of Rachel’s mouth the first time they had sex. It’s all in the refrigerator, every last one.

Rachel elbows her in the side and she staggers half a step over. Rachel laughs, light and happy, and Justin, Trevor, and Dana all smirk at her. “Hey, space cadet,” Rachel says, “whatcha want?” At some point while Chloe was thinking, a can of Milwaukee’s Best wound up glistening in Rachel’s hand.

“Uh, Bud’s good,” she says.

Dana plucks a bottle out of the fridge and swings the door closed, pops the cap with a bottle opener on her keychain, and hands the beer to Chloe with a smile.

Rachel taps her can against Chloe’s bottle and grabs onto her free hand. “C’mon, dance with me!”

And Chloe lets Rachel drag her out back into the crowd, taking a long drink as they go.

They meld into the heart of it all, never losing contact with each other, settling into the middle of the living room and dancing wild and fast the way Chloe loves. It’s the kind of dancing that clears her head. Nothing matters except the music rattling her body and the way Rachel touches her, hands _everywhere_ , thigh between her legs, hips grinding. Her hair’s like a mane whipping around them both, her smile absolutely radiant. Rachel is stunningly beautiful. There’s not another word for her, not on a normal day and certainly not when she’s trying, not with the perfectly torn skinny jeans and the combat boots and the faded band tee; not with the deep crimson of her lips and the heavy smokiness around her eyes.

She’s enchanting, and judging by the way the people in their immediate vicinity dance almost as closely to her as Chloe is, the electricity of her presense doesn’t only affect Chloe. Rachel pulls in everyone. She always does.

It’s impossible to keep track of time at these parties, the whole atmosphere is so consuming. It feels like they just started dancing when she moves to take another drink and finds her bottle empty. 

Rachel pushes her empty can into Chloe’s other hand and braces herself on Chloe’s shoulders to lean up and speak directly into her ear. “You get us some more drinks and I’ll save you a spot?” Rachel’s breath is so warm and her lips so soft against her ear, Chloe can’t hold back a shiver.

Rachel pulls away, grinning wide, and she resumes dancing by herself, a beacon in a sea of bodies, a lighthouse Chloe feels called back to already.

If she leaves, how long until Rachel starts grinding with someone else?

_Stupid_ , she thinks, and she makes herself turn and squeeze through the bodies to get back to the kitchen. Rachel dances with everyone all the time. It’s not a big deal. It’s just Rachel being…Rachel. _We agreed to this. To other people_.

She gets halfway through the living room before a flash near the doorway catches her eye. It’s dark and hazy from all the pot smoke and there’re a lot of bodies between them so it’s hard to tell, but Chloe would swear it was a camera flash.

When it goes off a second time, she’s certain it is.

And it’s dumb, really—god, it’s _so_ fucking dumb—but her mind immediately goes to Max. It’s just such a _Max_ thing to do: show up at a punk party and _take pictures_ , record the moment instead of being in it, part of it. Living it.

When the photographer takes a step back into the open doorway so she’s bathed in the yellow light from the porch, Chloe’s sure she’s hallucinating.

She’d know those freckles anywhere. She’d know them from a mile away.

Chloe’s legs are carrying her over before she’s made up her mind to go, but before she’s taken three steps, the girl turns and walks out the door.

“Shit,” Chloe whispers, speeding up, shoving people out of the way more than skirting around them.

She half-throws and half-drops the empty can and bottle on the small table beside the front door and rushes out, spotting the girl after a second, almost to the sidewalk. She jogs past the congregation of smokers on the porch and down the front steps, trying to keep up, but this girl is _fast_ , leaving in a hurry and the way Chloe always feels drunk on Rachel at these parties mixed with the shitty beer is hitting her fast and hard. “Max?” she calls out, the name falling from her lips in a breathless rush before she can stop it.

The girl turns and Chloe stops dead in the middle of the walkway. “Chloe?”

“Holy shit.”

It’s Max. It’s really her. In the flesh, a vibrant blush creeping up her freckled cheeks, and it amazes Chloe how much—save for the new bob haircut—she still looks _exactly_ the same, down to the worn sneakers and nerdy t-shirt and expression of absolute fucking regret. It makes Chloe’s whole body seize up for a second because what did she actually think was going to happen? Did she actually think that Max would be _happy_ to see her? She hasn’t returned so much as a text message in years and now she’s back and still hasn’t reached out and— _fuck_. She should’ve stayed inside. She is not drunk enough for this, not nearly. Max clearly did not want to see her tonight. Ever, for that matter.

Max takes a small, tentative step forward. “Chloe, I—”

Chloe holds up a hand. “Save the spiel, Max. I stopped needing it a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Max says anyway. Her voice is small and Chloe finds it suddenly infuriating. “I’m so sorry. I meant to text, I just—”

“Didn’t?” Chloe forces out a dry laugh. “Yeah, I noticed.”

A horrible silence stretches out between them, punctuated by the bass drum beats low and muffled from inside the house. She is painfully aware of the dozen or so pairs of eyes trained on her back, people smoking cigarettes and enjoying the lawn show. She’s been one of those people watching more times than she can count; somehow, she’s managed to make it until today without being the one watched. It sucks, she decides. All of this fucking sucks.

“How long have you been back?” Chloe asks. She doesn’t know why she’s still talking. Why she’s still standing here. She should be telling Max to go fuck herself and going to get more beer. She should never have followed her, never have stopped her. You can’t keep people around after they’re ready to go. If there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s that.

Then, goddamn it, why does she keep trying?

“Just a couple weeks,” Max says, and it stings like the scrape of Chloe’s skin over asphalt when she falls off her skateboard. “I was just trying to get settled in and—”

“Be real with me here,” Chloe says, taking another few steps forward, trying to outrun the gazes of their audience despite knowing she can’t. “If I hadn’t stopped you just now, would you have told me you were back?” She hates how fucking soft her voice is. She hates how it cracks at the end. She hates how the twitch of a grimace on Max’s face tells her that she heard it too.

“Yes,” Max says, no hesitation, but Chloe can’t believe it. Not when so much—all—of the evidence points otherwise.

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“Chloe—”

“Goddamn it, Max, it’s been _two weeks_. No, fuck, it’s been _five fucking years_!” She isn’t conscious of deciding to start yelling, but she yells and she opens her arms up wide, as if gesturing to the air around them will illustrate just how much time has passed with Max radio silent. “How _settled_ do you have to be?”

“I was waiting because I didn’t want our first talk with me back to wind up like this.” Max raises her voice back, not quite to Chloe’s volume of yelling, but loud, especially for Max. It surprises Chloe enough her arms flop back to her sides. “I was trying to find the right way to tell you that _wouldn’t_ wind up with you screaming at me in front of someone else’s house.”

“Oh, so _I’m_ the shitty person for being pissed off that you _ghosted me_ for five years?”

“No, that’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you _implied_ by being pissed at me right now. Actions speak louder than words, Max, you fucking told me that once. But I’m supposed to be your loyal sidekick, right? Dutifully wait for your return and then welcome you back into my life with open arms, like nothing happened. Right?”

Max’s chest rises and falls slowly. She keeps her eyes down at her own shoes. Somehow, it makes Chloe even angrier.

“Maybe these past five years were a fucking vacation for you, but my life got _fucked_ , Max!”

“I didn’t leave you on purpose!” Max yells, finally breaking and letting her voice ring out loudly enough it bounces off the houses and light posts and hits them again in echo. She looks _sad_ , Chloe realizes. Max lowers her voice back to its normal volume when she says, “My parents didn’t exactly give me a choice at thirteen.” 

No. Max doesn’t get to be _sad_. Not about this. “Oh, did they jack your phone too so you couldn’t answer any texts or calls? Did they hide your letters? Break all your pens so you couldn’t write back, not even once?”

And it hits Chloe now how utterly pathetic she must sound. She’s all but begging here, on some punk chick’s lawn, a growing collection of nosy assholes assembling on the porch to watch her life go up in the flames that have been licking at her for years, waiting to catch. She hates herself for running after Max and she hates herself for stopping her and she hates herself for starting this useless conversation. She hates herself for still wanting Max to be in her life. She hates Max for making her feel all of these things at once.

Max steps forward to close what distance remains between them and she looks at Chloe with a face that Chloe knows means she’s so sorry she doesn’t know what words to use to convey it all. It’s a face that washes out the fire enveloping her just like it always has, since they were kids. “Chloe,” Max says, and her voice is soft and gentle and soothing in a way Chloe wants to be infuriated by, but it’s hard to be mad at Max when she’s vulnerable like this, so Chloe stays put and lets her continue.

“Please, please believe me when I say that I hated leaving you, especially right after…Especially when I did. I meant to stay in touch. I wanted to, and I should’ve, and there’s no excuse for why I didn’t. It was…horrible of me. It was really horrible and dumb and I regret it _so much_. And then when I found out I was coming back, I immediately thought about you and how we were gonna get to be Max and Chloe again and I was _so_ excited, but…”

“But you knew how pissed I’d be,” Chloe mutters.

Max nods sheepishly without looking at her, then quickly adds, “You have a right to be mad, Chloe. Every right. Just…I’m really, really sorry.”

Chloe feels numb, like she’s watching some dream version of her life. This can’t be real. Max is _gone_. She’s been gone for so long Chloe’d long since given up on ever seeing her again. She pinches herself, just to be sure. It hurts and Max is still in front of her, a puzzled look on her face now.

“I guess I should go,” Max says softly, turning to leave when Chloe still hasn’t said anything after another minute.

Her words shock Chloe back to life and she finds herself taking a large, staggering step forward and grabbing Max’s wrist. “Will I—” she starts, but she chokes it off before she can finish the _see you again_ because it sounds even more pathetic than everything else she’s done tonight and she can’t stoop that low. She knows her dignity got left somewhere inside the house, but maybe she can at least get out of this without looking like a complete ass.

Max seems to read her mind anyway. “I haven’t been back to Two Whales yet. It was always kinda…our thing. So I was hoping maybe we could catch up there, once I got the guts to tell you I was back. If you want breakfast?”

Chloe nods, despite the voice in her brain screaming at her, _Max left you for five years_. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s get breakfast. What time?”

Max is silent for a moment, watching Chloe so intently she knows it should make her uncomfortable, but the feeling never comes. “Are you, uh…Are you still chronically late?” Max asks so softly Chloe almost doesn’t hear her, ears still ringing from the loud music. The corners of Max’s lips tip up into a hesitant smile and Chloe can’t help it, she finds herself smiling back.

“I make _entrances_ , thank you,” she says.

Max smiles a little more fully. “Let’s say…eight?”

Chloe groans. “Why so fucking early on my day off?”

“So that whatever time you actually do show up will hopefully still be morning, at least.”

Chloe clicks her tongue but she can’t argue. She can’t be mad, even though she still wants to be, even though there is still a hint of fire, buried somewhere deep by the fact that _Max is back_. Is it smart to let Max back in this easily? This quickly?

_Probably not_ , she thinks, but it feels very much like she already has.

She says bye to Max and walks back onto the porch with a million thoughts running through her head, not paying attention to anything other than _Max is really back_ , and she bumps headlong into Rachel, sending them both stumbling. “Shit, sorry,” she says, and when she catches Rachel’s eye, she can’t quite stop the small smile from creeping up onto her lips.

Rachel puts her hands on Chloe’s arms to steady herself and studies her with an expression Chloe can’t read. “Word on the street is you were letting some chick have it out here. Did I miss anything good?”

“I saw Max,” Chloe says.

For a second, Rachel’s mouth moves but no sound comes out. “What?”

“I talked to Max. She’s back, Rach,” she says, grinning wider.

She doesn’t wait to see Rachel’s response, already grabbing her hand and yelling, “C’mon, I wanna fuckin’ mosh!” as she pulls her back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks so much to everyone who leaves kudos and kind words in the comments!
> 
> I am on tumblr sort of sporadically, but feel free to find me here: https://areweasbandits.tumblr.com


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s never had a problem a little alcohol and some dancing couldn’t solve. Soon, she’ll start to feel the buzz and the room won’t be overcrowded, it’ll be a safe space, just like always. She’ll get drunk and she’ll dance and she’ll blend into the crowd. All the shit will melt away. She’ll feel better soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's a bit late. It's been a rough ride getting it here.
> 
> Also, fair warning, this one's a bit heavy on the feelings without a lot to lighten it.

“I saw Max,” Chloe says, and just like that all of the air leaves Rachel’s lungs.

All of the air leaves the world, actually. She struggles to breathe, to form words, to process this. Max was here? Talking to Chloe?

And Chloe’s _smiling_ about it?

“What?” she finally chokes out.

“I talked to Max. She’s back, Rach.”

She can’t breathe.

Chloe grabs her hand before she can do anything else, yells something Rachel’s ears don’t hear and her brain doesn’t register, and pulls her back inside the hot, loud, overcrowded house. The whole building feels like it’s crushing her, like the walls are caving in. Everything’s too loud and too close and she wants to stop walking but Chloe’s grip is firm and sure and her energy is electric. Rachel can’t pull away.

Chloe drags them back into the kitchen and Rachel stands rooted to the spot for a moment, imploding in the doorway as Chloe rifles through the fridge. She pulls in a deep breath and forces herself into motion, walks around the edges of the kitchen and opens each cabinet, one by one, until she finds the small stash of liquor. She grabs the bottle that has the most left in it without caring what it is, unscrews the cap, and raises it to her lips. She gets three generous swallows of it down before her throat seizes and catches fire and she pulls back spluttering, eyes watering, coughing and coughing and coughing.

“Shit, Rach,” Chloe says, crashing a hand into her back. “You wanna chase that with something?”

“Nope,” Rachel says, and she grabs Chloe’s hand and pulls her back to the living room, her tequila and Chloe’s beer in tow.

Everything’s a blur, a mismatched collection of bodies she doesn’t know pressing too close, too warm. The music throbs and pulses and she can fucking _see it_ like strobe lights on the edges of her vision. Chloe’s hand clamps tightly around hers—too tightly—as Rachel pulls them into the heart of the living room. She’s never had a problem a little alcohol and some dancing couldn’t solve. Soon, she’ll start to feel the buzz and the room won’t be overcrowded, it’ll be a safe space, just like always. She’ll get drunk and she’ll dance and she’ll blend into the crowd. All the shit will melt away. She’ll feel better soon.

She takes another long drink and it goes down a little easier already. It still burns, but it’s getting easier.

Rachel stops near the center of the room, drops Chloe’s hand to touch her hip instead, and Chloe grins like this is the best night of her entire life.

All it took was for Max to come back.

Rachel drinks and she tugs Chloe closer and she dances, fast and careless and sensual the way she knows Chloe likes—the way _she_ likes. It’s interwoven legs and brushing torsos and wandering hands. It’s exactly what she wants.

She doesn’t know how much tequila she drinks. At some point it stops really burning at all—or maybe she just stops caring that it does—and the light goes fuzzy and warm, all reds and oranges and yellows. The whole party contrasts so sharply with the electric blue that is Chloe, Rachel almost wishes Max was still here to take a picture of it. But fuck Max. She doesn’t want to think about Max. She takes another drink.

“Tryin’ to down that whole bottle alone, Amber? Or are you gonna share?” Chloe asks as Rachel lowers the bottle.

It’s been a while since she’s seen Chloe this happy, this carefree. It’s honestly really nice. She’s missed it.

But then there’s that persistent voice rattling around in the back of her head, underneath the buzz from the alcohol and the music, reminding her _she’s like this because Max came back_.

 _Fuck_ Max Caulfield.

Rachel slides her free hand from Chloe’s hip around to her lower back and pulls her closer. Chloe grins and settles her hands on Rachel’s hips, letting her fingers wander up until they’re just underneath the hem of her shirt, and it’s all the go-ahead she needs.

“Whatcha gonna give me in exchange?” Rachel asks. She practically purrs it.

When she feels Chloe’s grip tighten, she knows it hits the mark. “What d’ya want?” Chloe asks, voice low against Rachel’s ear.

“Take a guess, Price,” she says, pushing the bottle into Chloe’s hands.

Chloe weighs it in her hand, then looks down at it and back at Rachel with an arched eyebrow. “How much was in here when you found it?”

Rachel shrugs and presses her lips to Chloe’s neck. “Don’t know. Why, you a cop? Gonna narc on me, Chlo?”

“Fuck off. No, I just—”

“Come _on_ , Chloe,” she whines. She slides her hands under Chloe’s shirt to trail them along her back. She kisses Chloe’s neck again and this time she lets her lips linger. Chloe exhales a shaky breath against Rachel’s hair and Rachel smiles. “Stop fighting what you want,” she says, her mouth on Chloe’s ear.

Rachel trails open mouthed kisses over Chloe’s skin, starting at her ear and moving down her neck, across her collarbone. She’s just dipped her fingers beneath the waistband of Chloe’s jeans when Chloe pushes her away and holds her there, and it’s like something snaps. The guitars are screaming and the drum beats rattle the floor beneath her feet and there’re a hundred people pressed too tightly around them, watching her crash and burn.

“What the fuck?” she asks, heat rising into her cheeks. Chloe has never—not once—pushed her away.

“You’re really fuckin’ drunk, Rach,” Chloe says.

Rachel scoffs. “Since when does that matter? I’ve been wasted like three-quarters of the times we’ve fucked.”

Chloe stiffens and her hand tightens around the bottle. “Not drank-half-a-goddamn-bottle-of-tequila-by-yourself wasted. You’re shitfaced.”

“Oh, fuck off with that Holier Than Thou bullshit.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This is what we _do_ , Chloe! We get drunk at parties, sometimes we fuck at parties, and life goes on. Jesus, this was _your_ idea!”

Chloe’s silent for a few seconds, glancing back and forth between Rachel and the bottle, and Rachel can feel the anger heating up inside her. There is a pattern, a routine they’ve upheld for three whole years and it’s always worked just fine. She knows her parts by heart and Chloe does too, so why the hell is Chloe ruining the whole show now? She _needs_ this, goddamn it. She needs to shut her brain off, just for a couple hours.

 _Fuck_ Max Caulfield.

“Are you seriously telling me you _don’t_ want to fuck?” The words spill out of Rachel’s mouth before she’s made up her mind to say them.

Chloe gapes her mouth open and closed and open again, Rachel’s anger bubbling closer and closer to the surface. This is not the pattern. It’s not the script. This is not what Chloe and Rachel do.

So quickly it’s almost imperceptible, Chloe shakes her head no. To Rachel, it’s the most flagrant gesture imaginable. “Rachel…” Chloe starts, reaching out a hand toward her shoulder.

But it’s too late; everything’s already boiling over. “Fine,” Rachel says, yanking the bottle back from Chloe and stepping away. “I’ll find someone who does.”

“Rachel!” Chloe yells, but she’s already worming her way through the bodies, tipping the bottle back up to her lips and swallowing the warmth.

The trouble is, everything’s _too_ warm. The music pulses beneath her feet and the bodies sway against her and she loses her footing, dizzy and nauseous, and _god_ has the room always been this fucking hot? She stumbles into a tall, lanky guy who grabs her and pulls her against his chest, one hand firmly and unapologetically gripping her ass, and she feels so sick she thinks she’s actually going to puke _on_ him.

She doesn’t want this. She has never wanted this. But her legs are leaden and her arms are jelly and she can’t propel herself away from him.

“Nice of you to drop by,” he drawls against her ear.

The words have barely left his mouth when a different set of hands—smaller, more careful ones—grab her and pull her away and hold her close, gently prying the bottle from her hands. “You okay?” Dana asks, but Rachel’s eyes are fixed on the flash of blue moving with speed through the crowd.

She tracks Chloe as she shoves her way across the room, watches the guy’s face shift from confused to amused to _scared_ , and Chloe punches him so hard he goes staggering back into the people behind him.

The music stops abruptly and everyone—every single person Rachel can see—turns to stare right at them.

“She’s fucking drunk, you asshole!” rings through the room, and then it’s all Rachel can do to pull herself out of Dana’s arms and half-run, half-stumble into the kitchen in time to throw up in the trashcan instead of all over everything else.

She leans back against the wall and sucks in slow, deep breaths. Dana leans against the counter beside her, puts a hand on Rachel’s back, and holds out a bottle of water to her. “Thanks,” Rachel rasps. She takes it, swishes around a mouthful, and spits.

“You should probably actually drink some too,” Dana says. “You okay?”

“Lovely,” Rachel says, sarcasm thick in her voice.

Muffled shouts filter in from the rest of the house and Rachel’s mind goes straight to Chloe, possibly in a room-wide brawl by herself now. Whatever just happened between them in the living room, whatever happens between them anywhere, there is one thing she’s never questioned: at the end of it all, she and Chloe will always protect each other, and right now it sounds like Chloe needs Rachel.

She pushes away from the wall but only manages a couple wobbling steps through the kitchen before Dana slides her arm around her waist and helps steady her. “Careful, Rach.”

“But Chloe…”

“Justin and Trevor were there. Last I saw, they had Chloe and some other dudes had the asshole. I’m sure she’s fine. That’s probably just him being pissed about getting decked by a girl in public and then kicked out.”

Rachel’s face must show how unacceptable that answer is, especially with the shouting _still_ ringing in from outside, because Dana sighs and starts walking, easing Rachel through the house and out onto the front porch without another word.

When they get there, the asshole’s being physically dragged down the street by three other men, shouting out a string of words Rachel can’t quite catch but she assumes are obscenities. Chloe stands in the middle of the front yard, an unlit cigarette perched between her lips, flipping him off with both hands as he goes. Justin and Trevor stand nearby, watching with expressions Rachel can only take as admiration and awe. She understands the sentiment. She feels it with Chloe too.

Rachel almost goes down on the first step and the commotion of her scuffling feet catches Chloe’s attention. She jogs over to them and gets on Rachel’s other side to help Dana get her down safely the rest of the way, and Rachel finds she can’t look at her. It’s too hard right now to look at her.

“Are you okay to drive her back?” Dana asks.

“Good to go,” Chloe says, a little muffled around the cigarette. Then, “Do you, uh…Blackwell or cabin?”

It takes Rachel a moment to realize Chloe’s talking to her, asking her where she wants to go. The thought of trying to make a quiet re-entry to the dorms right now is so absurd it would be laughable if she didn’t feel so completely and utterly like death. “Cabin,” she decides.

“Cabin it is,” Chloe says, keeping Rachel upright and walking as Dana slips away.

Chloe hauls her to the truck, Rachel stumbling, dragging her feet the whole way, wrapping her arms around Chloe’s neck to keep herself upright. She nearly takes herself out stepping off the curb and grips her fingers tightly into Chloe’s shirt.

“Easy,” Chloe says, voice tight, holding her close and steady. “I got you.”

Chloe opens the truck door and plants her palms over Rachel’s hips to guide her up into the seat, then closes the door to walk around and get behind the wheel.

Rachel shifts to curl up against the seat, back against the door and legs tucked up underneath herself, and for a long while she just watches Chloe drive. She watches the way her hands grip the wheel a little bit too tightly, until her knuckles go white. She sees every sideways glance Chloe gives her, and the hint of something unfamiliar in her eyes that Rachel can’t quite read. She doesn’t match what Chloe is supposed to look like after a party. It’s not right, and even in the haze of sleep running up to her, the warmth she feels like she’s drowning in, Rachel feels like it’s absolutely her fault that Chloe looks this way.

She was kind of a bitch earlier. And Chloe’s still here, still being sweet, still taking care of her.

Rachel wants to slide over and lean her head against Chloe’s shoulder. She wants to hold her hand so she stops squeezing the wheel so hard Rachel’s afraid that either it or Chloe will break. She wants to kiss her.

But all of these things require action she is too drunk and too tired to perform. She’s not sure she could control any of her limbs if her life depended on it right this second, so, instead, she looks at Chloe, waits for her to turn onto the main road out of town, and she says, “Love you, Chlo.”

She’s not sure if Chloe responds. She’s not sure if Chloe even hears her. Her eyes are closed before she’s finished the sentence. She’s asleep not long after.

—

Rachel wakes up to too much light filtering in through the closed blinds and a splitting headache. She opens her eyes anyway and it takes her a few moments to register that she’s in bed at the cabin, tucked beneath the covers, and that Chloe isn’t on the other side next to her. She lifts her head and it pounds even harder but there’s no denying it: Chloe’s pillow is definitely empty. She brought Rachel home and left, and Rachel’s stomach churns at the thought.

Did she bail for Max?

“Shit,” Rachel breathes, lying back down and squeezing her eyes closed.

When a voice that sounds very much like Chloe’s whispers, “Hey,” she thinks she’s dreaming. “Brought you this.”

She opens her eyes again when the bed sags beside her and there’s Chloe, hair a ruffled mess, deep bags beneath her eyes like she’s hardly slept at all, a tentative smile on her lips. She holds out two pills in one hand and an already opened bottle of water in the other. Inexplicably, just seeing her makes Rachel feel warm and safe and almost happy. She feels as good as she can feel with her skull threatening to crack open and her stomach rolling in waves.

“Where were you?” Rachel asks, her voice raspy from yelling over the music all night and downing straight tequila and— _oh_. She drank _a lot_.

“Slept in the chair,” Chloe says, shrugging.

And that’s…strange. “Afraid I’d puke on you in the bed?” She sits up enough to reach out for the pills, but it’s a bad idea: the movement sends her stomach rolling again and she bolts out of bed, into the bathroom, and she’s sick for what feels like a lifetime.

At some point Chloe follows, holds her hair back, and Rachel’s still having some difficulty processing that Chloe spent the night with her, is still here, is taking care of her like nothing happened. She’s having trouble processing that Chloe’s not with Max.

But obviously something did happen. Chloe slept in the _chair_ , which is the least Chloe thing to do in any situation. Even when they’d barely known each other at all, Chloe was always willing to share a bed.

Rachel leans back against the side of the bathtub and closes her eyes. “Fuck,” she mumbles. She shifts so she can lean her head back against the lip of the tub, feels the porcelain cool against her skin.

She hears the toilet lid close right before Chloe flushes and then feels Chloe sit beside her, nudging her knee gently with the water bottle. “C’mon. You have to be dehydrated as shit by now.”

“Thanks, mom,” she says, opening her eyes to sit up and take the pills and water, but there’s no bite to her words. She’s so grateful that Chloe is here, she can’t even pretend to be anything less.

The pills go down better than she expects them to and once the water hits her tongue, she finds herself gulping it. She forces herself to stop, to pace herself, to let her stomach adjust. She crosses her legs to knock her knee gently on top of Chloe’s, but Chloe doesn’t acknowledge it. _Shit_. Something bad _did_ happen.

“So, really. Why’d you sleep in the chair?” Rachel asks.

Chloe’s silent for so long Rachel starts to wonder if all of this _is_ actually a dream, if Chloe isn’t actually here at all, but then she brings a hand up to rub nervously at the nape of her neck and starts to speak. “You, uh…You got kinda pissed at the party, so I wasn’t sure you’d…I didn’t even know if you’d want me to stay. But Justin knows this guy who almost choked on his own puke or some shit when he got really wasted and…Well, I just…I wanted to be, like, _around_ in case…Y’know…” As Chloe trails off, the night comes back to Rachel in horrible blips, like a highlight reel of the worst parts of what had the potential to be a great party.

The almost-full bottle of liquor growing lighter and lighter in her hand.

Flirting with Chloe on the dancefloor.

Arguing with Chloe on the dancefloor.

Some dude…groping her?

Shit, Chloe _punching_ him.

She takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “Fuck. I guess I owe you one, huh? For staying. And for punching that asshole.”

Chloe turns bright red. “You remember that?”

“I remember more than I want to, honestly,” she says, chancing another drink of water. “I’m glad I remember that sick left hook though.” Rachel offers Chloe a smile.

Chloe doesn’t return it. “What the hell did you do that for?” Chloe asks, and there’s fire in her voice now, enough that Rachel’s head throbs at the sudden change in volume from their near whispers.

“What?” she asks, but she’s pretty sure she knows exactly what Chloe means.

“Why the hell’d you get wasted like that?” She doesn’t sound angry, exactly; Rachel can’t quite place the tone of her voice, but she thinks it’s somewhere between confused and hurt and _fuck_ this is turning into something so much more complicated than she ever wanted it to be.

Why couldn’t fucking Max Caulfield have just stayed in Seattle?

“I always get drunk at parties, Chlo,” she says, trying to keep her voice as light as possible, trying to play it off.

“Not like this,” Chloe says. “You didn’t even…You didn’t even _look_ like yourself. Your fucking _eyes_ were different, Rach. And then you were totally passed out by the time I got you back here and I was _not_ graceful getting you up all these goddamn wooden steps, okay, I’ll admit that, and you _still_ didn’t wake up. I almost took us both out on the railing at the top and you didn’t flinch. You were _that_ fucking drunk, Rachel. What if I wasn’t…I mean, what if someone else…” Chloe sighs and runs a hand through her hair. “ _Fuck_ , Rachel.”

Rachel slinks back down against the bathtub and rests her head against it again, puts down the water bottle in favor of rubbing two fingers against each temple, trying to ease the increasing, throbbing pressure between them. This is all too much. Her father raised her to handle a lot, to be strong and capable and weather whatever bullshit came at her, but she can’t handle this right now. She can’t, and she can’t get her brain to work out a suitable rebuttable, a way to deflect answering and calm down Chloe at the same time, so she closes her eyes and breathes and waits for Chloe’s next move.

She doesn’t want to lie to Chloe—she’s never _lied_ to Chloe—but she’ll be damned if she admits today or ever that her need to ignore the return of one small, painfully awkward childhood friend drove her to the point of blackout drunk.

And, sure, it wasn’t _all_ Max. It couldn’t have been. Max was just the last straw. The catalyst. It wasn’t really Max at all. It was stress for Chloe getting her heart ripped out when Max decides to run off again. It was stress from all her classes at Blackwell. It was stress from the SAT she’s supposed to take tomorrow and how important good marks on it are. Getting drunk is a normal reaction to all of these things. People do this shit all the time.

So why then, when she opens her eyes and finds Chloe studying her with soft, blue eyes does she feel a knot clench in her stomach?

Why then, when Chloe whispers, “You fucking scared me, Rach,” so softly she’d swear it was just a trick of her ears if she hadn’t seen her mouth move around the words, does a weight settle squarely on her chest, pressing her down until she’s about two inches tall?

She’s not sure at first what to say to that, what to do with that, so she sits up again and leans over to press a kiss to Chloe’s cheek. Chloe’s not usually one to talk about feelings that don’t center around her being jubilantly happy or violently pissed off. Rachel’s still learning how to navigate the softer ones, though she never can help feeling distinctly special every time Chloe does share something hard with her. It’s a reminder that Chloe trusts her in a way she doesn’t trust anyone else. It’s nice, if she’s being honest.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel says after a moment. “For scaring you. But I’m glad you’re still here, Chlo. That you stayed.”

Chloe nods but doesn’t respond. They sit in silence like that for a while, just breathing, Rachel taking sips of water until the bottle runs out.

A couple minutes in, Chloe starts to fidget, avoiding Rachel’s eye and drumming her fingers on her knees. Rachel knocks her with an elbow and says, “You can go smoke, you know.”

Chloe stills. “But—”

“I’m upright and conscious. Not in danger of asphyxiating.”

Chloe nods but she doesn’t move. Rachel bumps her again, a little gentler, and Chloe lets herself sway with the momentum of it before she settles back against the bathtub.

“How much do you remember?” Chloe asks. It’s hesitant and soft and unsettling.

“Uh…” Rachel starts, thrown by the question, thinking. “It gets pretty fuzzy after you punched that dude.”

The way Chloe says, “Oh,” is even more unsettling. How one tiny word—just two little letters—can make Rachel’s chest feel hollow, like she’s let Chloe down without knowing how or why, is astounding.

“Why do you ask?” Even as the words leave her mouth, Rachel’s not sure she wants an answer.

Chloe shrugs and gets to her feet. “Just wondering. Sure you’re good here while I smoke?”

Rachel’s deciding if she has the energy to press for the truth behind Chloe’s non-answer when two car doors slam closed outside and a new wave of panic surges through her. She and Chloe look at each other wordlessly for a second before she hauls herself onto her feet and Chloe darts to the bedroom window, hissing out a long breath.

“Shit, it’s your parents. I thought they weren’t back until tomorrow?”

“They told me they weren’t,” Rachel says, rushing to try to make herself look halfway presentable in the mirror. It’s a tall order: mascara smudged down to her cheekbones, lipstick partially worn off, her hair completely unkempt. She does what she can, wipes off the rest of her lipstick and the worst of the makeup smudges and runs her fingers through her hair on her way back into the bedroom, where she finds Chloe zipping up her jeans and pulling on her beanie.

“What do I—?” Chloe starts.

She’s cut off by the front door opening downstairs and James yelling, “Rachel? Are you here, honey?”

“Shit,” Chloe mutters.

“Hey, dad! Be down in just a sec!” Rachel calls back.

But the look on Chloe’s face keeps her feet planted where they are.

“Chlo?”

Chloe moves back to the window and peers out of it at the ground. “Think I’ll still break a leg if I duck and roll?”

“Yes,” Rachel says, pulling Chloe back. “You’re not bailing out the fucking window. Just walk down the stairs.”

“I can’t see them, Rach,” Chloe says, verging on frantic. Then, softer, “Not after last time.”

And, well…last time was kind of a trainwreck.

“Hey,” Rachel says, smiling, “it was pretty awesome watching them clean cranberry sauce out of the hole in the wall the next day.”

Chloe breathes out a laugh, but when she speaks, it’s like she’s begging; it’s like nothing’s funny at all. “Rachel.”

Really, it isn’t funny at all.

“Just follow my lead, okay?” She grabs Chloe’s hand and tugs her toward the stairs, already planning out her elaborate distraction. She just needs to get her parents to follow her out the back door for a couple seconds, long enough for Chloe to slip out the front door, and—

And when they get to the foyer and Rachel peers around the staircase, she finds her parents in the kitchen with their backs to her, putting away groceries, seemingly oblivious to Rachel and Chloe being there at all.

“It’s your lucky day, Price,” Rachel whispers to Chloe.

Chloe exhales a shaky sigh. Rachel opens the door as quietly as she can and Chloe offers her a sloppy salute on her way out. Rachel snaps the door closed behind her and lets out breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

“Was that Chloe?” her mom asks, and when Rachel turns, both of her parents are looking at her with tight, forced smiles.

Time to act her heart out.

“Yeah,” Rachel says, smiling broadly and sauntering into the kitchen to throw her arms first around Rose, then around James. “I’ve been being a bit of a hermit here this week, cramming for my SAT tomorrow—I hope that’s okay. Chlo finally _insisted_ I get out for some fresh air and decent food. She just dropped me back off a couple minutes before you got here.”

“How sweet of her,” Rose says, and although the words don’t quite sound genuine, they aren’t directly insulting, so Rachel counts her act as a success.

“How was Cali?” Rachel croons, leaning her elbows on the back of one of the barstools and holding her head in her hands. “I bet it was magical, warm and bright like always. I miss it,” she says, and that last part isn’t even a lie.

James grins broadly, squares back his shoulders, and puts his hand on Rose’s shoulder. He’s absolutely beaming and it makes Rachel’s stomach squirm. Good things don’t follow this face. They never do. She holds the smile steady on her lips and waits.

“That’s actually a great segue, Rachel,” he says.

“Into…?”

“Well, it turns out one of my new colleagues is a very important, very big donor to Stanford. Important enough he has assured me that given your outstounding academic and extracurricular achievements, along with your parentage and his personal recommendation, you are a shoe-in for next year’s fall class. You can come back home, Rachel.”

“We’ve already started moving your things into the basement suite,” Rose says, beaming as widely as James.

“A Stanford pre-law student deserves only the finest. No dorm room or student apartment will do,” James says. Then he adds, “ _You_ deserve only the finest.”

For a few seconds, Rachel is incapable of doing anything more than gaping at them both, searching for words she can’t find. This isn’t the deal. This isn’t the plan. This isn’t _her_ plan.

Rachel knows she should respond, tries to keep the smile plastered on her face, but she feels the whole facade falling away as rapidly as she put it on. Her head is _killing_ her and she is not capable of handling this conversation today. “I want to go to UCLA,” she says, trying to keep her voice level and clenching her fist around the back of the stool at the way it wavers anyway. “I thought you agreed that I could go there.”

There’s an all-too-familiar anger coiling inside her and she doesn’t want to lose her composure—she _can’t_ lose her composure—but the way James is smiling at her, like she’s a very small child he has to explain this to very slowly and very carefully, is only fueling the fire.

“UCLA is a great school,” he says, “but so is Stanford. And this recommendation—a person of this man’s caliber taking a personal interest in your success…” James laughs and shakes his head. “It’s too great an opportunity to pass up, Rachel. You’ll have the legal world in the palm of your hand before you’ve even graduated.” He holds his palm up, like he’s showcasing all of this invisible power Rachel could hold.

And she wants it. She does. There is an appeal to international law she’s never been able to shake: the opportunity to travel, to see the world; the power, the pull, the prestige she could have, just as her father is promising; the personal financial stability, for the first time in her life, to do what _she_ wants, not what James thinks is best, not what she has to do to keep her life the way it is.

All she has to do is move back in with her parents, sending her plans to escape with Chloe to their own apartment up in flames. All she has to do is live with her parents again, look at them every day over cuts of fruit at breakfast and elaborate three course dinners, and pretend that she doesn’t still loathe them both for what they did to her and to Sera and to Chloe.

“We miss having you around, Rachel,” Rose says. “Your father and I, we…” She looks at James and he places an arm around her shoulders. “We want the three of us to be a family again.”

“Stanford will be lucky to have you.” James _beams_ at her, like she’s ten years old and winning the talent show all over again, or fifteen and landing her first lead role in a school play. There’s a disconnect she doesn’t expect between how she’s prepared to feel proud of herself for making him look at her that way and how her chest tightens instead.

Not so long ago, she reveled in that smile of pure pride. She worked herself to exhaustion and yes, it was partially because she _wanted_ the rush of success, the feeling of every pair of eyes in a room training onto her when she entered it, knowing that she’d proven herself in such a way that if she wanted something, it would be hers; but she also yearned for her father’s approval. His pride.

But now? Now, that toothy smile clenches her throat and seizes her lungs and ignites that fire in her chest. She doesn’t want the approval of a man willing to lie to his own daughter about the existence of her birth mother for fifteen years. She doesn’t want anything to do with it and she can’t live with him again. She _can’t_.

“I don’t want to go to Stanford,” she says, standing up level with her parents.

James removes his arm from Rose’s shoulders and takes a small step forward, just big enough that he feels suddenly too close to Rachel, taking up too much of her space. “Well, you’re eighteen now, Rachel. An adult. We can’t make you go, of course. But I’m afraid your mother and I can’t condone you letting this opportunity go to waste.” He takes another step. “Emotionally or financially.” The harsh notes of his aftershave burn her nose; they send her stomach reeling again, but she swallows it back.

“You’re not serious,” Rachel says, taking a step closer to match him despite everything in her body screaming at her to get away from all of this.

James looks at her with the perfect poker face, honed by years playing high caliber politics, and she sees right through it. She’s pissed off and offended at once that he thinks she’s honestly this easy; that he thinks he can stroll back into town with a wallet full of cash and a charming smile and weasel her into doing whatever he wants like a marionette dancing on his strings.

She wants him to _do_ something besides just standing there with that fucking smirk. She wants him to admit that he’s trying to micromanage her life until she becomes a clone of him, until she becomes the exact opposite of everything she wants to be.

“You’ve tried the money ultimatum already, dad. That’s a little uninspired, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” James says calmly. “This is not an ultimatum, Rachel. Although…My money has certainly kept you around this long, hasn’t it? I’m not dense. I know when someone’s using me.”

“I’m still here because I want to be,” she lies, quick and easy. “Not because of you.”

James nods slowly, that smile still planted on his lips. “Then it’s really quite clear, isn’t it, that my offer isn’t an ultimatum? If my financial support means nothing to you, the potential to lose it shouldn’t be a factor in your decision.”

Rachel crosses her arms and digs her nails against her skin, trying to distract herself with the sharp pain of it; trying to keep her expression, her posture steady. “It doesn’t feel like much of a decision from where I’m standing.”

“We all make decisions every day, Rachel.” James closes the gap between them and places a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Yes, each decision offers a separate consequence, but ultimately, those choices are still ours to make. I’m simply offering you a choice. It’s up to you to weigh the consequences and pick the option that you feel is most advantageous to your career. Your dreams. Your _life_.”

It’s all she can do to stop herself from slapping his hand away, telling him to keep his money and go fuck himself with it. A couple of years ago, she knows she would have.

She did, the first time they had a conversation like this about her future. She told James and Rose she didn’t need them and she and Chloe tried to escape alone, without her father’s bribery money. They took a couple duffel bags and filled up Chloe’s truck with as much gas as they could afford and raided all of their combined kitchen cabinets for road-ready snacks, and they left. A day later, they found themselves on the side of a deserted, wooded road in the Middle of Nowhere, Oregon, out of gas and money and queasy from stomachs full of nothing but Pop-Tarts and granola bars. If Dana hadn’t answered Rachel’s call, they’d probably still be wandering around somewhere, hitchiking and panhandling and who knows what else to get by.

As much as Rachel wants— _needs_ —to get out of Arcadia Bay, she doesn’t want to live her life forgotten in the middle of nowhere without a single thing to call her own.

As much as she loathes her father in this moment, she knows she still needs him. She needs his monetary support. Just until she gets something else worked out. Not for long, but for now.

So she forces the anger down. She puts a smile on her face and she gently removes his hand from her shoulder. “Your colleague sounds very generous, dad. I’ll give Stanford some thought.” The words leave a bitter taste in her mouth.

James and Rose smile back at her. Their smiles are just as easy, just as fake as Rachel’s own. “I’m so glad to hear that, honey,” James says.

“Oh, Rachel, I’m thrilled!” Rose wraps her up in a hug that squeezes the air out of her lungs.

 _There’s another way_ , she thinks, wrapping her arms around her mother’s back. _There’s got to be another way_.

She’ll figure out something. It’ll just take a little bit of time. But she’ll figure it out.

She’s not going to Stanford. She’s not going to move back in with her parents. She can’t.

She won’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am always appreciative of kudos/comments, but I will love them extra for this chapter. _So much_ revision went into this one and I'm honestly still not completely happy with it, but I needed to let it go into the world.


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